City Stage haS a freudian trip
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four-point plan to Save Sd40
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highlander in driveway
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friday
January 10 2014 www.newwestnewsleader.com
a new westminster contractor is happy after the city decided to abandon a policy he felt was expropriation by bureaucratic blackmail. page a3
Church proposal back on table Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
Trevor MorGan/ConTribuTed
trucks line up for the pattullo Bridge at about 2:30 p.m. on tuesday.
Traffic sure feels worse, but is it? Early indications are higher cost to cross Port Mann increasing Pattullo traffic through city Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
The numbers haven’t been tallied yet to prove what they’re seeing, but when they are, two New Westminster councillors expect they will confirm their belief that traffic congestion has increased because tolls on the Port Mann Bridge have doubled. Rush hour is usually bad in New
West, but it appeared worse early On Jan. 1, vehicle tolls on the new this week with the first return to Port Mann Bridge doubled to $3 a work in the new year for many crossing. commuters. Coun. Lorrie That works out to $1,500 Williams said it took her a year for someone using it 17 minutes just to go two twice a day, five days a week kilometres from city hall to for 50 weeks. her Sapperton home. That That also coincides with works out to less than 10 the opening of the full km/h. South Fraser Perimeter williaMs “I was amazed. Everywhere Road, built for goods I looked there was traffic,” said transportation, which has a long Williams. “There was an absolute roundabout connection to the Port difference in the volume of traffic. Mann Bridge but a much more The number of cars was just direct one to the Pattullo. unbelievable.” “Everyone is noticing it is having
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Next door neighbours to a West End church are disappointed they are being dragged back into a controversial proposal they thought was resolved four years ago. The Saint Gheorghe Romanian Orthodox Church on Eighth Avenue and Bowler Street is applying to the city to rezone its property so it can build an addition to the 78-year-old building. It originally applied in late 2009, and eventually got approval for a rezoning for a scaleddown version despite objections from the neighbourhood. According to a report to city council last month, the original request would have required many updates to the structure in order for it to meet building code regulations. Council approved a zoning that would have allowed a twostorey addition of 575 square feet and for the setback from Bowler Street to be reduced from 25 feet to nine feet, said the report. However, the applicants did not build the addition. please see neiGhbours oppose wesT end ChurCh, a4