Editor:
I would like to voice my support for a new crossing of the Fraser River to replace the dark and aging George Massey Tunnel. I think everybody agrees the time has come, especially when we know that even if we start discussions about it today, it will be 10 to 15 years to fruition.
If we are going to build a new crossing, then by all means it should accommodate the larger ships of today; that is how we grow our economy. To limit the crossing is like saying we should build another three-lane bridge or another Pattullo Bridge.
I hope the planners have vision so we don't succumb to small ideas like the interchanges at highways 17 and 10 or the interchange at Highway 99 and River Road.
However, I would also make the point that I would like the new crossing (bridge or tunnel) to be named after one of our original colonists, John Sullivan Deas, a man who came from California in the Gold Rush days, farmed on Salt Spring Island under a grant from Governor James Douglas, moved to the mainland and became an entrepreneur with a salmon cannery on Deas Island.
I think the time is long gone when we should be naming our infrastructure after political hacks from any party. We have enough genuine forebears and heroes to name 100 bridges.
Cliff Matson
