Toronto now has a major highway coming in from up north and it dumps all its traffic into the NW suburbs instead of going downtown like it was supposed to.
Why?
NIBY’s…….Not in my back yard!
The only problem was that most of the objections came from people who didn’t live anywhere near the proposed route!
(This almost happened with the Toronto Island Airport too, but thank God cooler heads prevailed and we can now fly right downtown from London instead of taking the train, going to Pearson Airport, or God forbid, driving the 401 or QEW.)
Five years later I was in Sarnia and someone wanted to put up a nice apartment/office building on the river by downtown, but these NIMBY’s apparently followed me and complained that the building would destroy their view of the river. (The only thing across the street from this building was the Legion Hall, so unless they lived there……. no one’s view was blocked!)
Be that as it may, the NIMBY’s won this battle too, and now instead of a nice view of the river…. Sarnia has had an ugly plywood fence full of graffiti to look at for the last thirty five years! (Still no view of the river!)
Over to London, Ontario, (My adopted home town) about thirty years ago.
Adelaide St. is one of the major north / south streets in London and if it weren’t for a half a mile stretch of forest right in the middle of the city, it would be one of the best ways to get from one end of town to the other!
Plans were well under way to finish this last stretch of road when the NIMBY’s discovered an endangered butterfly, or mouse, or Red Riding Hood and her grandmother lived in the woods.
Soooooooooo!
When you want to go from one end of town to the other, ya still have to make a twenty minute detour so you don’t disturb Red and her Grandmother!
Or that damned butterfly!
Whatever!
NOW!
Dorchester is a beautiful little village just to the east of London and it is dissected by the Thames River, so they have a bridge that connects the two halves.
This bridge is really old and in danger of collapsing, according to Middlesex County engineer Chris Traini. He said the existing steel-truss bridge linking the community north and south of the Thames River needs to be replaced.
Sooooooooooo!
People got together and decided to build a new one. After all, they didn’t want people on the north side of the river unable to get to the grocery, liquor and beer stores, which were all on the south side!
But hold on bunky!
Debra Van Brenk of the London Free Press informs the Perspective Research Department that lamp mussels may delay start of the new bridge.
Seems they need a time-sensitive water search for the wavy-rayed lamp mussel, a species that’s endangered in Canada and Ontario.
IF, the endangered species of mussels IS found, (and there’s no saying that they will) the creatures would have to be relocated before the bridge can be replaced.
[Eastern Lamp Mussels have a long, oval-shaped shell. They are brown on the outside with dark greenish-black rays. Inside, the shells are pinkish. All the pictures on this page show only the shells. A mussel has soft inside parts as well (think of when you've seen the insides of a clam or oyster). An important body part of a mussel is the foot. A mussel's foot is not like your foot. It is a long, muscular body part which can stick out of the shell. A mussel uses its foot to move, much like Daniel Day Lewis in the movie "My Left Foot!']
“We don’t know if they’re there,” Traini said. “(But) we have to be mindful that they may be there.”
(The county is hoping for approvals from the Natural Resources Ministry in time for a summer survey.)
Guelph researcher Gerry Mackie — a zoologist whom Traini called the province’s foremost expert on the lamp mussel and who would conduct the search — said the survey and possible relocation of the mussels can take place only when the water temperature reaches 16 C.
That makes June-to-August the only time for a survey.
But if approvals aren’t granted in time, Traini said, the whole project may have to be delayed yet another year, to 2012.
That’s cutting it close to the wire, he said. The county has asked for a meeting next month with the natural resources minister to emphasize the urgency of the matter. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
Now that’s still not saying that lamp mussels will be found.
Oh no!
But only then can Middlesex County start construction on the $6.8-million bridge.
The original bridge was built in 1923, said Traini, and is just worn out. It’s so corroded that heavy traffic has been barred from traversing it “just to be on the safe side.”
YA KNOW, IT’S A WONDER ANYTHING AT ALL GETS DONE IN THIS COUNTRY !
(Meanwhile, the poor people in the northern part of Dorchester are in danger of going without food and drink!)
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