Go back to the drawing board

Editor:

Minister Vessey’s defence of Plan B does not come close to justifying the proposed expenditure, nor the disruption and personal hardship the realignment would cause to affected landowners, nor the blight it will leave on the Island landscape.

He refers to the radius of certain curves being below the minimum national standard of a 440- metre radius as an important factor and contends that curves closer to a 330metre radius are “far too sharp.” I find this very misleading because there are many factors other than radius that affect the safety of a curve, such as the design of the approach, the length of the curve and the cross slope of the curve, to name a few.

The curves near Churchill are relatively short, which is good, and could be improved by modifying their radius to the extent that the adjacent terrain would reasonably allow and, most importantly, by bringing the cross slope up to standard. The latter is the only real deficiency in the current design. The fact that these curves have a radius of less than 440 metres is not important when they can be made safer by adjusting other factors.

I would also point out that the socalled national standards were set by industry, not by government, and therefore are not mandatory. The minister also claims that the hills are too steep to maintain a reasonable speed. This is simply not true for the majority of vehicles on the road and passing lanes already compensate for the current grades. The hills would have to be a lot steeper than they are to justify the proposed realignment.

The public reaction to Plan B has been almost universally unfavourable, to put it mildly, and the justification put forward is not convincing. The minister should send his engineers back to the drawing board and come up with a plan that is both affordable and acceptable to the people of P. E. I.