Dear Sir:
Hazel Marcil's letter on Terrace's snowed up sidewalks, The Terrace Standard of Jan. 19, 2011, makes one reflect. Why does the Terrace City Council under-fund sidewalk maintenance?
The city works department does what it can with what it has – heroically, even, given the conditions they work under. City council, however, evidently thinks that pedestrians are a nuisance, that they indicate poverty, perhaps – can't afford cars – and so embarrass the pretense of wealth. I once overheard a plump little fellow complain over not being driven to school, "Mom! We're not poor!"
Moreover, walkers, healthier, likely embarrass the more rotund of our residents as they wheel into Timmies or Micky D's or KFC for their hourly.
Further, as the quantity of physicians indicates the economic health of a community, were walkers given due regard, there would be less call for the medicals, thereby loss of prestige.
Ill health benefits the community image – or at least the one city council appears to want to project.
A suggestion for pedestrians, then: walk on the street, and carry a big stick – an iron bar best – to support yourself, of course. Wouldn't dream of taking a swat at a road hog. One could always move to the evidently better administered Hazelton, too.
Dr. David Heinimann,
Terrace, BC