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LETTER: Shortsighted decision on Highway 1A

Editor: I've sent Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert and Airdrie-Banff MP Blake Richards. I wanted to respond to a recent announcement regarding the closing of Highway 1A by Parks Canada during the shoulder season of 2022. I'm a Canmore resident and an avid

Editor:

I've sent Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert and Airdrie-Banff MP Blake Richards. I wanted to respond to a recent announcement regarding the closing of Highway 1A by Parks Canada during the shoulder season of 2022.

I'm a Canmore resident and an avid cyclist, having moved up from the San Francisco Bay area one year ago. With my family of five and friends from the area, and frankly from around the world, we have really enjoyed the short stretch of the 1A that has been closed to vehicle traffic over the last two years.

However, this recent announcement, in my opinion, is a very well packaged bad decision wrapped in a veneer of public goodness, leaning towards misleading.

The whole point of opening the 1A should be for families to enjoy this very limited stretch of highway, not to pander towards diehard cyclists like myself. We're happy to ride it with traffic. The beauty of last year's experience was to see people young and old getting out on bikes with trailers, e-bikes, bikes with training wheels, family caravans riding five a-breast, etc.

With this plan, it will be open to vehicle traffic precisely during the period when kids are not in school, but closed when they are in school? It will also be closed to vehicle traffic when the weather will be the least favourable. During those beautiful, warm summer days when you can get your kids and your grandparents out and breathe some clean mountain air, it will be rolling with air-conditioned buses. This is really a ham-fisted decision and I'm not happy about it.

I just wonder how they could get it so perfectly wrong? This is a great asset to our region, which has been receiving international attention. I cannot believe the economic benefit of tour buses outweighs the benefits of bringing throngs of cyclists to our region, young and old.

We are simply asking for 17 kilometres of road to be dedicated to families on bikes. What percentage is that of the entire Alberta highway system? And why wouldn't the Parks want to support it?

Bruce Eidsvik,

Canmore

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