The project to create a quiet railroad zone along part of the tracks adjacent to Evergreen Highway is apparently complete, and the city of Vancouver is about to bill people in the benefit zone their share of $992,425.
What did the engineers of the Department of Public Works do with all this money? They did some so-called engineering work, which was trivial in the extreme. They installed some barricades to prevent drivers who were making a left turn from cutting off the corners. They put up several signs warning that the trains no longer toot. They reduced the speed limit near the crossings to an unrealistic 25 miles per hour. And they installed four speed-measuring devices to advise drivers if they are going more than 25 mph.
Did they harden the crossing barriers to prevent cars from crossing in front of a train? No, they didn’t. The things that I’ve described are the sum total of what the city engineers did, and I believe the crossings are actually less safe than they were before.
Surely these grade-school efforts don’t justify a bill of nearly a million dollars.
Bruce L. Melkonian
Vancouver
