All Q’d up
TUESDAY April 22, 2014 • www.langleytimes.com
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NEWS Awards for Girls Fly Too
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ARTS & LIFE Music and Mayhem
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SPORTS Blaze off to hot start
New rail overpasses not enough, Township report warns DAN FERGUSON Times Reporter
A plan to expand the Deltaport container cargo terminal in Ladner will send more trains through Langley than the nearly-completed new overpasses were designed to handle, a report to Township council warns. The Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) project proposed by Port Metro Vancouver would build a new three-berth container terminal that would double capacity at the South Delta deepwater port. Once complete, the expanded facility would ship the equivalent of 4.8 million 20-foot-long containers through the Township and Langley City every year, more than double the current annual figure of 1.8 million. That is substantially more than the new overpasses in the Langley area were built to accommodate, warns a report by Township transportation engineering manager Paul Cordeiro. The construction of the new overpasses, part of the Roberts Bank Rail Corridor project, was to handle an planned increase of rail traffic from 1.8 million to 3 million by 2021 as a result of adding a third container ship berth at the Deltaport terminal. The overpasses, are “not intended to mitigate the full impact of RBT2” the Cordeiro report warns. The report says despite a year of lobbying by Township staff and other municipalities along the rail corridor, the impact of the expanded rail traffic is not being studied by Port Metro Vancouver or the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, the body with the authority to order mitigation measures. The two agencies “have failed to recognize the linkage between the RBT2 Project, which expands container capacity and the resulting increased rail traffic which has significant socio-economic impacts on the local community,” the Cordeiro report says. Continued Page 7
ALYSSA O’DELL Langley Times
Jackson and Ackadia Kirkpatrick delight in chocolate Easter goodies during the Eggsellent Treasure Hunt at Nicomekl Elementary School grounds on Saturday. The event was sponsored by Home Church Langley.
Bus loop safety keys outlined BRENDA ANDERSON Times Reporter
Beyond a more prominent police presence at the Logan Avenue transit exchange, there are several keys to improving safety at the Langley City bus loop, TransLink and Langley City council members agree. Installing brighter light bulbs, creating better sight lines, scheduling more frequent trash removal, increasing video surveillance and
actively discouraging graffiti will make using transit safer, they say. What’s less clear, however, is who is to pay for what. Last winter, the City contacted transit police “explaining that there was a large amount of disorder around the bus loop,” said Neil Dubord, chief officer with the transit police service, who made a presentation to City council at its April 7 meeting. After speaking with the
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RCMP, and having the area surrounding the bus loop assessed using CPTED — Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design — principles, transit police provided the City with a number of recommendations for improving safety and overall behaviour in and around the bus shelter. Among the items that came out of the CPTED analysis, were recommendations that the site be kept clear of trash and that the City work with
Cascades Casino to install video surveillance along Locke Lane — the alleyway that runs between the casino and the nearly-vacant Rainbow Mall, where the bus loop is located. Prompt clean-up of graffiti and discouraging the defacing of utility boxes by covering them with vinyl wraps, as has been done in other areas of the City, is also among the recommendations. Continued Page 5
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