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Art for whose sake?
Silence speaks volumes
A city council committee is split on which piece of Biennale art taxpayers should buy, while some councillors question the wisdom of any purchase at all.
Students at Steveston-London take a vow of silence to show solidarity with those around the world who don’t have freedom of speech and other human rights.
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WEATHER
Commuter chaos as Canada Line freezes BY A LAN CAMPBELL
acampbell@richmond-news.com
The operators of the $2 billion Canada Line are blaming a perfect storm of sub zero temperatures and snow for Thursday morning’s chaotic rush-hour commute. Hundreds of Canada Line passengers were left stranded in and around Richmond as the mission to get to work descended into farce. An already tricky journey due to an early morning snowfall was thrown into disarray when the rail on the Canada Line bridge over the Fraser River froze, cutting off the power to the train. Ice and snow build-up caused two trains to lose power and get stranded on the bridge around 8 a.m., effectively closing the route between the Bridgeport and Marine Drive stations. Shuttle buses were deployed to transport hundreds of weary commuters over the river, but long line-ups soon built up in each direction. And at 8:30 a.m. a train that had just left Aberdeen station came to a halt before it reached Bridgeport. It was two hours before a Canada Line crew managed to get another train out to shunt that marooned car and its passengers into Bridgeport. Jason Chan, a spokesman for the rapid transit operators Protrans BC, described how ice and snow had built up on the line more
ALAN CAMPBELL/RICHMOND NEWS
Ice build up on Canada Line rails over the Fraser River caused long delays. Shuttle buses were brought in to take people between Marine Drive and Bridgeport. Even on the Richmond side, it took one train two hours to get from Aberdeen to Bridgeport station. quickly than they had anticipated. “It was particularly bad on the power rail that powers the trains,” Chan said of the stalls on the bridge over the river. “The environmental factors of the day may have got the better of us. But any bridge over water in these conditions is going to be susceptible to icing.”
Ricky Mann, a passenger on the crowded train, contacted the News and told how the car lost power, causing the air conditioning to shut down. “I only got on at Aberdeen and didn’t make it very far,” said Mann, who was trying to get downtown to his Canada Post job. “The air conditioning went off and it
became very stuffy very quickly. I think it took me more than two hours to get from Aberdeen to Bridgeport and now there are huge line-ups to get the shuttle bus across to Marine. “I think they should have looked into this a bit more and made more plans to deal with a bit of snow.” Mann seemed to think the slight incline on the line on the approach to Bridgeport was making it tough for the train to continue forward. The train stuck on the Fraser River bridge was recovered and brought into Bridgeport just before 10:30 a.m. Although the temperatures did rise throughout the morning, Chan said the line’s power rail was still very cold, making it easy for falling snow to stick, accumulate and freeze. “We did run trains through the night and had a de-icing train out there during the night, but the ice build-up was much faster than anyone expected,” he said. Chan explained that, basically any elevated guideway is prone to problems such as Thursday mornings, when certain weather conditions prevail. And he added that Protrans BC are now working on how to prevent a similar situation happening the next time snow and freezing temperatures hit. “We will run more de-icing trains. We’re looking into all available resources to deal with this,” he said. see Delayed page 4
ENVIRONMENT
Naturists want ‘hidden jewel’ of wetlands protected Naturists are pleading with the City of Richmond to step up and protect a little known parcel of ecological gold from being lost forever. Due to dense stands of birch trees, the 80 acres of former peat mining wetlands — adjacent to Country Meadows golf course $
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and the No. 6 and Blundell roads intersection — has, for many years, gone undetected by naturalists and government agencies. The owners of the land, Eco Waste, are preparing to bring forward an application to fill in the land with soil before marketing it for blueberry growing. But a Richmond member of the Vancouver Natural History
Society, who has been closely monitoring the area, has witnessed the rare sight of one of the Lower Mainland’s few sandhill crane families nesting on what naturists are calling the Lulu Island Wetlands. Julian Hudson and other members of his society have also spotted an abundance of rare frogs, waterfowl, deer, birds of prey and migratory birds either seeking refuge or
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hunting on the wetlands. Now Hudson has asked the city to look into saving the “hidden jewel” by buying the precious plot, perhaps with a view to turning it into a naturist attraction. “The golfers were the ones that alerted us to the land being drained a while ago,” Hudson, who lives close to the area, told the city’s parks and recreation committee on
8171 Westminster Hwy. (at Buswell, one block east of No. 3 Rd.) Walkway access also from Save-On Foods parking lot
Mon-Sat 8:45-6:30 Sun 10-5 (604) 780-4959
Tuesday. “Ecologically speaking, it’s more significant now that the cranes are there and that they are breeding there. There is at least one family there and there is thought to be only 12 cranes in the Lower Mainland. What we’re asking the city to think about at this point is protecting the area, perhaps by way of purchasing the land.” see Land page 4 07283111
BY A LAN CAMPBELL
acampbell@richmond-news.com