Editor:
With respect to the op-ed “Dreaming of Returning to our Parks” in the Rocky Mountain Outlook’s April 23, 2020 edition, I am writing to provide a perspective not offered in that letter.
COVID-19 has had a devastating impact around the world and the Bow Valley has not escaped its wrath. As the leasehold owner of Norquay and the Banff Train Station, and in my husband Adam’s role as the Banff Centre’s chairman, we have seen up close the devastation of the shut downs, layoffs, and human cost this virus has had in our community.
Recovery will not happen overnight. But when our community does welcome visitors back, we all have an opportunity to do better, and that is what we, as business owners and longtime residents of Banff are focused on today.
My family through our company Liricon has spent the last five years trying to do our part to address the impact of vehicles and congestion on residents, visitors and wildlife in Banff by developing the Banff Eco-Transit Hub at the train station.
We have initiated a public/private partnership to return passenger rail service between Calgary and Banff, and we have built Banff’s first-ever intercept parking lot that we provide free of charge.
We also hope to link the Banff Train Station and Norquay with aerial transit as part of an integrated solution to address congestion, ecosystem health and climate change in Banff National Park.
A gondola to the base of Mount Norquay Ski Area will take thousands of cars out of the Cascade wildlife corridor per year, cut per person greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds, and allow for the protection of wildlife in an important wildlife movement corridor.
Aerial transit will also help pay for the expense of providing those hundreds of intercept parking spaces. From the get-go, we have been upfront and transparent about this.
Philanthropy, in and of itself, is not a sustainable model; creating a revenue stream to support the longevity of those philanthropic efforts, is. Why CPAWS raises our potential to make a profit as “breaking news” aimed at discrediting my family and somehow positioning us with ulterior motives is a mystery.
Parks Canada was clear in December 2019 that our original aerial transit proposal was too ambitious. We listened, we learned and we appreciated the feedback.
We are revising accordingly. CPAWS can sleep well knowing that Parks is doing its job, and that processes are in place to make sure any proposal, including ours, is vetted through a rigorous policy framework.
Jan Waterous,
Liricon Managing Partner
