Editor:
I have had the pleasure of being a director of two associations regarding the BNSF. One of them is Communities and Coal and the other is Smartrail. As one of the letters to the editor said, congratulations to Paula Williams for helping cancel the coal transfer or possible terminal at Fraser Surrey Docks.
In the same paper there was an article about the trains stopped at the entrances to Crescent Beach, blocking traffic for periods of time, and comments about re-positioning the track to other locations, with Eric Seiz and others talking about incidents especially with landslides.
Well, Smartrail has been around for a long time with continually working on a new location for the tracks. At the helm of Smartrail is Ken Jones, past MLA. Apparently back in about 2003, the City of Surrey allocated, I think, about $300,000 towards a study on a new route.
They are now talking about releasing another $300,000 for the same thing. All they have to do is ask Ken Jones and all the people he has approached or got involved in these things over the years.
Save a bundle of money and get the information from the horse’s mouth. We already have a new route figured out going back many years.
The biggest problem now is preserving that route from developers filling it in and causing a lot more money in the future buying those people out.
Brian Lauder, Surrey
