THE FRIDAY
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
TRI-CITY NEWS
Truss failure on line
JUNE 20, 2014 www.tricitynews.com
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
Transit changes coming
Pipes & PoMo parade
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SEE THINGS-TO-DO GUIDE, PAGE A17
INSIDE
Letters/A11 Tri-City Spotlight/A18 Elaine Golds/A26 Sports/A35
Burke Mountain proposal prompts residents’ petition
By Gary McKenna THE TRI-CITY NEWS
An equipment failure on the Evergreen Line truss is being blamed for shutting down North Road during rush hour Tuesday afternoon, the second incident to cause a road closure this year. According to Evergreen Line construction manager Nasir Kurji, the truss, which is used to help build the SkyTrain line’s elevated guideway, slipped while moving a piece of concrete into place near Foster Avenue. The equipment failure forced the closure of North Road while construction crews worked to reposition the beam on the truss. The road was re-opened at around 11 p.m.Tuesday. “We don’t know specifically what the nature of the failure is just yet,” he said. “We do see the truss has moved slightly.” Nobody was hurt in the incident and construction was to resume once an investigation had taken place. A ministry press release also noted that the incident would not affect the construction schedule for the Evergreen Line, which is set to open in the summer of 2016. This is not the first time that problems with the construction of the SkyTrain guideway have caused a road closure. In March, a section of Como Lake Avenue was shut down in both directions after a massive concrete beam shifted above Clarke Road. Project director Amanda Farrell said at the time that a temporary spacer on the column on the southwest side of the intersection failed, causing the guideway to rotate. Kurji said this week that the two incidents are not related. gmckenna@tricitynews.com
JANIS WARREN/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Burke Mountain residents (from left) James Sanderson, Corine Carey and Ashley Lequyer submitted a petition to the city of Coquitlam on Thursday to oppose a plan to re-designate 35 acres near their homes that was to be the site of a middle school for higher density housing with little green space. See article on page A3.
Arts in trouble in PoCo? Second Storey Theatre in PoCo is shutting its doors after five years and at least one councillor is concerned: Story, page A16
Demands ‘too high’: minister Teachers calling for mediation By Tom Fletcher BLACK PRESS
The latest offer by the BC Teachers’ Federation to settle its provincewide strike has moved the union farther from the “zone of settlement”
established by other public sector unions, Education Minister Peter Fassbender said Thursday. With a strike underway that could run until the end of the school year, Fassbender said neither mediation — which the BCTF called for in a press release Thursday morning —
nor a legislated settlement is being considered. Peter Cameron, chief negotiator for the BC Public School Employers’ Association, said the latest union proposal would bring the compensation increase for teachers from 12.5% over five years to 14.5%. see BCTF, page A6