Editor: I’m wondering, with the elections around the corner, if Langley Township council members have been out walking, as I have been, and I am wondering about the waste of tax dollars.
I cannot figure out why, on the coast, where trees grow at such a rapid rate, the Township persists in planting trees beside the walkways and curbs, in about a foot and a half of soil, and doesn’t expect to run into trouble.
Council members and candidates should just go for a walk from 88 Avenue to 93 Avenue on 208 Street, and see what those trees have done to the sidewalk.
It is like walking on a roller-coaster. The sidewalk is up and down from the tree roots. It is a waste of taxpayers’ dollars.
Now the trees have to be cut down and new sidewalks put in.
And why do they have to plant shrubs and trees in the middle of the road, to be pruned and weeded and watered? It is another waste of dollars.
If anyone drove up on 96 Avenue, around the Johnston Heights area in Surrey, they would see cement curbs in the middle of the road with brick colored cement in the middle of the road. It looks so nice and neat and needs no maintenance.
What is the matter with putting in wider sidewalks to the curb, and planting trees on the lots on the inside?
Just get the developer to plant trees when they are building. That will save the taxpayers money, and the trees will look just as nice on the inside as they do on the outside. The roots will have room to grow without lifting up the sidewalks.
And why did they put cement dividers in the middle of the road on 203 Street, which is an industrial area?
Now they are chopping them up because the semis can’t turn there. Why not leave the middle as a turning lane?
Is it all about looks — because it is not working. They turned 98 Avenue into a one-way street at 203 Street, planted four-foot high pampas grass so no one can see anything, and have cars going down an alley that is a single car wide, in order to get back onto 98 Avenue.
Council was petitioned and the area was inspected. We were told that the road would be fixed in 2013.
It is now halfway through 2014 and nothing has been done.
OK, councillors, it’s time to address these issues and quit beating around the bush. You keep this up and it will cost the municipality a lot of money to keep fixing mistakes.
Donna Thurston,
Langley
