Dear Editor:
Your March 20 story, WV Transport Plan Is Pedestrian Oriented, tells us that West Vancouver council "happily received the municipality's Strategic Transportation Plan."
It is hard to tell where these happy people live. One thing for certain is that they do not live on the North Shore or have ever visited it.
Perhaps they spend their time reading articles about the Netherlands.
North and West Vancouver are the first mountains of the Coast Range. That is why all the tsunami victims of the last decade want to move here. Ask any Realtor. This fact seems in recent years to have become a big elephant in a small room.
The truth is that if we saw a cyclist whizzing along on any traffic road with a small child seated behind him, someone would call the police.
If we see anyone who is not school age walking, above Marine Drive, we assume that that person is a victim of dementia who has wandered out and become lost. We stop and offer to help.
When we see someone running up a hill for health reasons, we turn to your obituary page - this is not a joke, as any real resident can tell you.
It is fashionable right now to call any extended construction a "village."
West Vancouver is not a village; nor, despite recent attempts, is it a giant strip mall or a resort for the last of the very rich yuppies.
Women who live here do not toddle out every morning with our little wicker baskets to buy our family's din-din before running a few miles.
We, especially seniors, either drive or we are trapped.
Parking must be a top priority, as Rick Richards, unfortunately not a council member, pointed out. We drive by large parking areas reserved by businesses for their non-existent customers.
We are all going to be suffocated by the cars driving round and round and round looking for parking - driven by people who have no choice.
In case this plan is a clever tactic to get more seniors to give up their homes, we should remember that all the senior singles and couples who will be attracted to live in the new retirement warehouses will have to bring either one or two cars with them.
Another thing that is certain is that the happy council members are not planning to give up their own cars.
When they all have done so, please put a notice in the paper.
Eve Whittaker West Vancouver
