a een I Io oe AT AT VANCOUVER. | Stupidity: | PNE board wins first prize again If prizes are ever handed out for -}stupidity, and for gall, the first prize should go tothe B.C. Place stadium tran- Sit task force and the second to the PNE _ | board of directors. What I am referring | to, of course, is their recommendation that the PNE grounds be turned into a 2,000 car park and ride facility for the ‘new stadium at B.C. Place. The idea is that people park their cars at the PNE and [then take special buses to the stadium. ‘| The existing park and ride facilities at the PNE can accommodate only 700 cars. _ | The other 1,400 would be put on the PNE _ |grounds proper including the places _} reserved for parking at Brighton Park. The problem is that the Bennett -}government went ahead and built a 60,000 seat stadium without any thought of provisions for transportation for the _ | people who want.to get there. Now they _ | want to solve the problem at the expense J of the people of Vancouver. They have already pressured the city to build a new Cambie Street bridge for them to service B.C. Place, and if not a Bill Darnell of the Save Our Neighborhood Committee points to a diagram of the concrete pylon that will replace a Cedar Cot- tage house already demolished to make way for the new Ad- vanced Light Rapid Transit line at a public meeting called by the Coalition to Save Transit Monday. The approximately 80 citizens who attended were urged to write B.C. Transit and the Social Credit government in a double-barrelled protest against Put B.C. Tel rates on hold — CP sR SE Te EOE S the destruction of the neighborhood (the province has refus city request that the line go underground) and the expen system itself. A conventional at-grade system would be cheaper and it’s not too late to stop it, argues the coalit formed from more than 50 organizatins when the Socreds mo! ed to abolish municipal control over transit earlier this ¥@ Further meetings are planned. For information phone 872- Rankin : Sate: 6s, Se __ | new bridge, then at least new entrances to the existing bridge. With Vancouver tax- payers shouldering a big part of the bill, of course. - Now they want to turn the PNE into a glorified parking lot. Since the B.C. Place stadium transit committee is made up ofa bunch of people hand-picked by the pro- vincial government and the same applies jto the board of directors of the PNE, (with the exception of the minority ap- pointed by Vancouver city council), it is not surprising that this ‘‘solution”’ should have been picked. The only people to vote against it on the PNE board of directors _ {were COPE aldermen Bruce Yorke and | Bruce Eriksen. _ Turning the PNE into a parking lot would only cause a whole new set of traf- fic problems in the immediate area and __ | the local residents want none of it. ‘| Theproposal was made that city coun- J cil, “hold public information meeting in the community to discuss the matter more directly with the local citizens.”’ In- stead, a meeting, and a poorly advertised one at that, was held at city hall, of all places, miles removed from the PNE. In spite of that the residents of the PNE heard of it and turned out. Not one brief to turn the PNE into a parking lot; they. all opposed it. We took up this issue in the council’s standing committee on transportation on Mar. 21. The committee recommended unanimously that this stupid and outrageous proposal of the provincial government be rejected. Next it will come before city council. I hope that council will just as emphatically turn it down. We don’t want any more park and ride facilities in Vancouver for the new stadium. There are more than enough in- dustrial parks and other areas outside of Vancouver that could easily serve this purpose. We should let premier Bennett couver has been dumped on once too often. The B.C. Communist Party demanded a one-year moratorium on rate hikes for the B.C. Telephone Company in a submission to the Canadian Radio-television and - Telecommunications Commission Mar. 24. Calling B.C. Tel’s latest request for an’ 11.3 percent hike from the CRTC ‘‘scan- dalous,”’ provincial party leader Maurice Rush has pointed out that there is still time for other groups to oppose the company’s request and join the moratorium demand. The CRTC held informal hearings into the rate hike request last week. It will host a series of formal hearings in April, and it will be several weeks following that period }. before the CRTC makes its decision. *_ The-party has sént letters to trade unions, ~ community organizations and other political groups urging their opposition to the latest increase, which if granted will ensure the company a 14 percent profit. It would also mean a total 31.3 percent in- crease in rates since early 1982, which is “outrageous”’ in a time of high unemploy- rate hike last May, despite a citizens’ protest and several interventions opposing the hike at hearings last year. The new hike would “take an estimated $27 million out of the - pockets of British Columbians during the coming year and vastly increase the profits to shareholders, mostly in the U.S.,’’ Rush told commission chairman Rosalie Gower. “The Communist Party wishes to place itself on record as being strongly opposed to the practice of the CRTC in setting excessive allowable rates of return to B.C. Tel,”’ said Rush. That hike gave B.C. Tel a rate of return of approximately 17 percent which was ‘‘discriminatory against the public, and totally at variance with the economic Situation as the results proved during 1982 when the interest rates declined and the economic crisis continued unabated.” B.C. Tel like other telephone companies, invests millions of dollars in new equipment to inflate its capital base, and claim a larger rate of return, said Rush, citing a Concordia University study. But ‘‘most phone users in job,” would investigate the situation. © stead, the commission usually rubber stam B.C. Tel’s requests, he charged, adding is any wonder that the public has lost fidence in the CRTC to protect ’ interests?” Rush’s concerns were echoed by the candidates for Vancouver’s Little Mout sont riding. Jean Swanson and Gerry charged that ‘‘there is a deep seated tion in the community that large, pow® institutions such as B.C. Tel can @ municate with other large, powerful inst tions like the CRTC and that they understand and emphasize with other.’’ gi The candidates said that in their 1@ there are 30,500 people on pensions, § assistance or unemployment insura? ‘