Dear Editor,

In a final gasp, the Agricultural Land Commission has convened a public information meeting on the Mufford Crescent/64th Avenue overpass proposal, at the Langley Events Centre at 7 p.m. on Aug. 30.

The first information sessions and public hearings on the issue were held Jan. 31 and Feb. 2, 2009, a mere 20 months ago, with an additional raucous round with the farmers and concerned citizens a few weeks ago, on July 22.

The proponent, with his engineering resource (same brain trust who gave us the much loathed 200th Street/Highway One intersection) in tow, advised that this four-lane travesty is required to transport the good citizens of the Willoughby area to the beckoning hayfields of eastern Langley. They were unable to defend dumping all of that traffic onto 216th Street, currently a busy two-lane rural road, and forever compromising large operating farming tracts on the historic Hudson’s Bay Farm.

They refused to consider the “J Option,” proposed at the original meeting, as it did not meet the required east/west connectivity test.

The only reason I can see the need for east/west connectivity is for the eventual development of the Salmon River Uplands, once GVRD water hits that area. This might prove the real economic “prize” for the developers, and this is a subtle way to get fast access built.

The J Option allows for the eventual and inevitable expansion of the Kwantlen agricultural campus, a community rail station for Kwantlen, and most critically, handling the seamless rerouting of traffic off of the Langley Bypass to eastbound Glover Road (Highway 10) and on to Highway 1, or westbound to 64th Avenue with preemptive lights when unit trains cross the Bypass – thus ensuring the desired east/west connectivity. As the number of unit trains will double over the next 20 years, this is a critical feature and benefit of the J Option solution.

When one sees the farming disasters on the Canadian prairies and Pakistan this year caused by excess rainfall, and massive drought in Russia and Australia causing the price of wheat to double in the past few weeks, we cannot just consign 40 more acres of prime local farmland to build a freeway to nowhere.

It is imperative local citizens put their vacations on hold for three hours on Aug. 30 and make their views known to the ALC.

Lee Lockwood, Aldergrove