Will light rail still be on track in 100 years?

Re: Century-old streetcar line uncovered on King — March 28 A jolt of excitement — March 28 Region expected to play key role in cars of future — March 13

The unearthing of the streetcar line opens the debate. Will the light rail transit system be the transportation method of the future, or will the rails being installed today be rediscovered during excavation 100 years from now?

Clues to the answer may already be available. The front page of the March 28 Local section shows a group of eighth-graders from Centennial Public School receiving “A jolt of excitement,” thoroughly in awe as they examine the car of the future. One of the students, Lauren Abbot, wants to stay in the car, saying “When a car is cool, you sit in it forever.”

The front page of the March 13 Record carried the headline “Region expected to play key role in cars of future.”

That article states General Motors is quite impressed with the University of Waterloo’s automobile research facility and the Communitech Hub in the Tannery Building. Spurred by this technology, Ontario car manufacturers continue to retool, with the financial aid of upper levels of government.

The bicycle-riding, mass-transit-taking, downtown-living advocates and others who strongly support the light rail project might want to look over their shoulder. The high-tech hub they are creating along the light rail route helps advance the very automobile they are trying to downplay.

Over the 30 years of the Grandlinq contract, those eighth-graders, who seem so enamoured with the car of the future, will become the community leaders. Their priorities might differ from the priorities being enacted today.

Presumably the city fathers who installed the track now being unearthed thought they were building a system that would last. Waterloo regional council believes the same.

The light rail transit project is being built, but its future is by no means guaranteed. Alex Taylor Cambridge