“Perhaps this is something for the blog,” suggests regular contributor Timothy Thomas.
Yes, Tim, it is.
Perhaps my favourite single view in the region, one that in a glance captures my intense love of this place is seen from Tower Beach, about a hundred meters west of the foot of Trail 3. I used to say to visitors I’d take to the shore: “Squint a bit. What you are seeing is miraculous. You would have seen this very same view 500 or 1000 years ago. Remember we are in a big city, with over half a million people. What other big city anywhere in the world can claim such intact beauty?”
Not any more. For no matter how hard you squint now, it’s bit less beautiful this year and forever more, because a gouge has been made in Nature’s elegant line.
Look at this detail.
There’s a deep scar on the bluffs above Lighthouse Park across English Bay, marring an otherwise pristine outline of ridge and mountain.
In a future, more reasonable time, they’ll probably ask: Why did that ugly gash have to be blasted into the mountain? Whose interests did this serve? Why did the highway to Whistler have to be made a bit more convenient, at that precise point, when a road tunnel and ample train and boat connections were eminently feasible? This mindless, permanent destruction makes abstract discussions about single-occupancy vehicles painfully real- all too concrete. This wound is the cost made visible.
Long after Kevin Falcon is dead and buried, his name and ambitions forgotten, his legacy will live on.
A cruel irony: the view from the cut through Eagleridge Bluffs, for those driving north, will likely be spectacular – looking south across English Bay, lining up with Point Grey and, no doubt, Tower Beach.
PT reader Keefer79 sends along a view of Eagleridge from the other side:
“This is at the southern end of the Sea to Sky Highway near Horseshoe Bay. The current highway is below the prominent gash at right (Eagleridge Bluffs). The new section will continue through the fresh clearcut and merge with the path of the existing highway.”
Large image here.
Is that a new cut? It looks like one that was blasted through in the early 1970s when the upper levels was first built. Has it been widened?
Ron,
The damage is new this summer- I saw it a month ago when I went back to Tower Beach for the first time in several months. This is a brand new route, Falcon’s brainchild, the reason for the Eagleridge protests we all saw in the papers. Now we see what they were talkin’ about, huh?
Hi Gordon,
Here is the view from the other side recently from the ferry. More head-shaking…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/88984806@N00/789760744/
Cheers,
Keith
It’s also an extension of the overall destruction currently being wrought in the name of the Olympics on Cypress Mountain, which is supposed to be a provincial park:
http://www.cypressmountain.com/CBRbaseCam.jpg
http://www.cypressmountain.com/images/Whats%20New%20for%202007-08%20poster.pdf
Thanks.
Yeah, I think the real reason that a tunnel wasn’t built was because hazardous goods can’t be taken through tunnels (necessitating a parallel overland route).
I’ve never been up to Cypress in winter – didn’t realize they had that many runs.
Cypress Mountain is the name Cypress Bowl Recreations, Ltd, a subsidiary of Boyne USA, uses for the ski resort in Cypress Provincial Park. The actual mountain, Cypress Mountain, is located in Coquitlam.
Found some aerials on Waite Air Photos:
http://www.globalairphotos.com/gallery/BC/West_Vancouver/Horseshoe_Bay/
“Yeah, I think the real reason that a tunnel wasn’t built was because hazardous goods can’t be taken through tunnels (necessitating a parallel overland route).”
Do hazardous goods not travel through the Deas Island tunnel, or the various railroad tunnels in the Rockies? If so, how are they moved?
See here for the “TUNNEL TRANSPORTATION OF DANGEROUS COMMODITIES REGULATION” . Division 3 deals with “Transportation of Explosives and Flammable or Corrosive Commodities
Through the George Massey Tunnel and the Cassiar Connector Tunnel”.
Typically an open surface route is available for dangerous goods transportation on roadways. i.e. the Alex Fraser Bridge provides an alternative to the George Massey Tunnel. In Seattle, I-90 restricts dangerous goods because of its tunnels, whereas SR-520 has no tunnels.
I don’t think the same standards apply to railways.
http://www.qp.gov.bc.ca/statreg/reg/T/174_70.htm
That’s also probably why the Cassiar Connector Tunnel off-ramps allow a through-routing to avoid the tunnel, as seen in this aerial shot:
http://www.globalairphotos.com/images/bc/vancouver/2007/vch2007_384.jpg