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Long list of parks projects considered Pool, rink, fields are city’s top priorities By Neil Corbett ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com
City council, now prepared to borrow up to $110 million for parks and recreation facilities, is considering a long list of projects that goes well beyond turf fields, ice sheets and a new pool. Thursday, Maple Ridge council started prioritizing the needs of the city: • two new community halls in Albion and Silver Valley; • two new youth action parks for skateboarding and other wheeled activities in Silver Valley and Albion; • a smaller and more affordable space for the performing arts, a theatre seating 100 to 150; See Facilities, 5
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Investigation RCMP closed 216th Street Saturday after a man’s body was found inside a car in a church parking lot. See story, page 10.
Underpass on Pitt agenda Council talking with CP about Harris crossing By Neil Corbett ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com
Pitt Meadows council has been working behind the scenes for a Harris Road underpass to take drivers beneath the CP Rail tracks, and the issue will be on a council public agenda in January. Mayor John Becker said the project is a priority for both the railway
and the city. What’s more, the movement of goods makes it an issue for Port Metro, and a project that may be smiled upon when Justin Trudeau’s government is doling out infrastructure grants. Becker said CP and different levels of government – the transportation Becker ministry, Gateway Program and Port Metro – have been involved in the conversation. “The level of confidentiality is
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not one that our council would have chosen, but was imposed on us as a condition of conversation,” said Becker. Early in the new year, Becker will put the $20-million-plus project on a council agenda. While potentially expensive, he said transportation is “consistently one of the top priorities of our residents,” He said the underpass could lessen train building headaches for CP.
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Right now, CP’s ability to connect long lines of cars is constrained by an inability to extend train building across Harris Road. CP cannot go west because of the Navigable Waters Act – a federal statute that says it can’t sit on the train bridge. CP can only build trains from Harris Road to the Pitt River, and some trains are longer than that. So CP has to take trains in pieces, move them elsewhere, then put them together. That is a significant cost to CP rail. See Underpass, 10
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The Harris Road crossing is a priority for CP Rail.
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