Editor:
Last month, as I was coming home from the North Shore to Crescent Beach, I decided to swing through the beach to have a look around.
My timing was bad, so as I was just about to cross back over the train tracks, the lights started flashing, the bells started ringing and the arms came down blocking my way.
I sat for what seemed a very long 10 minutes and wondered what it would be like if I was was driving the ambulance, fire truck or police car trying to attend an emergency. That precious time taken up in those minutes can be life or death, or whether your house is still standing.
I don’t understand why the governments of a sovereign country like Canada can’t just tell railways like the BNSF that we have to remedy this as of yesterday and get a way of getting across those tracks somehow when a train is going by.
Probably the only way to cross the tracks – without costing a fortune and disrupting the area immensely – is under the train bridge at the marina. This would be for emergencies, and they would have keys to any gate blocking the way.
Where there is will, there is a way.
If my house burned down or I lost a member of my family due to the ambulance sitting on the other side of the tracks, I would be suing the city and BNSF big time.
Is this what it is going to take to get all parties off the fence and get this done?
Brian Lauder, Surrey
