Gondola proposal is madness

Re: “We may not need a gondola project, but we need to keep an open mind,” Keith Gerein, June 16

Usually, I value Keith Gerein's opinions as providing insight into municipal affairs, but on the matter of the gondola we part company. Clearly, in opposing it, I am guilty of “debilitating cynicism.”

Entrepreneurship should be encouraged, but only if the project is worthwhile. Twenty towers and five large obtrusive stations for a 2.5-kilometre system of transportation? It's madness!

If people want views of Edmonton they can stand on the banks of any of several riverside parks or take a balloon ride. If the visitor experience is to be enhanced, try putting interpretive signage into the river valley, explaining its unique geology, flora and fauna and cultural history.

The river valley bylaw contains an “essential” provision designed to protect the valley from developments that do not absolutely depend on a valley location or are unnecessary. Gerein's semi-joking comparison of the non-essentialness of Rogers Place and the provincial museum is invalid; neither of these are in the river valley so the bylaw doesn't apply.

In the city's policy statements of the early 2000s, the river valley and ravines were considered the backbone of a system that connected natural spaces and provided a corridor for the movement of wildlife. Since then, human activity in the river valley has flourished and protection, which necessarily depends on limiting it, has been forgotten.

Edmonton has bigger problems than diverting city staff's attention to a gondola. P.J. Cotterill, Edmonton