WATER STREET PROJECT A WASTE OF MONEY
On March 3, the City of Charlottetown notified the residents and taxpayers that work on city streets will be reduced this year due to lack of manpower to do the work.
This comes on the heels of confirmation that a major project — closing and tearing up a perfectly good section of a traffic artery, Water Street, and creating a new road along the events ground — will start soon.
It is crazy enough that we are going to spend an estimated $14 million (likely $20 million with over-runs) on something we don't need, but then to be told that we will be expected to drive on rotten streets in the rest of the city for the foreseeable future, due to lack of manpower, is adding insult to injury.
If this, years-long, traffic circle project at the foot of the Hillsborough Bridge happens, it will be fun when the people “wake up,” as they sit in traffic jams, where the new “Stupid Street” joins Grafton Street and ask: “How did this white elephant come about?” “Who done it?” Worse yet, will there be ambulance delays due to longer routes?
Interestingly, in spite of all the public political posturing, we are apparently unintimidated by how this affects climate change.
We are going to tear up a perfectly good street, Water Street, and make a new one from Water Street across the Charlottetown Events Grounds to Grafton Street, regardless of how enormous the carbon footprint is it will create.
All on a whim, a city-commissioned 10-year-old plan by a Toronto outfit is dug up. The province is now also involved, conveniently labelling it, “the population explosion.”
Taxpayers of P.E.I. can be forgiven for asking: are these mega projects and traffic circles, one after the other, concocted for the purpose of keeping Department of Highways busy and big road-building companies operating? Obviously, job creation is not the goal, since, according to this latest city announcement, an acute shortage of workers will lead to city streets going unfixed.
With our health delivery in shambles, mental health facilities delayed, food banks under stress, and homelessness and housing dominating the “public square,” it would seem that there is enough to keep politicians busy, without pursuing make-work projects that push up the deficit.
It is deplorable that so little foresight exists in our public offices, that we are told to live
with broken city streets in order that we plow ahead with a vanity project that is both environmentally and financially unsound, while stealing scarce manpower that should be deployed where it serves the public's immediate needs most productively.
Halt the nonsense, halt the project, and respect and serve the interest of the people who have put their trust in you. Kirsten Connor, Charlottetown, P.E.I.