Turcot deserves to die

[Re: “Life, death and Turcot,” Cover, News, Jan. 22] Even though I’m a metro/bus-riding Point St-Charles resident, I must voice my strong disagreement with the single-sided coverage of the Turcot Interchange project by Patrick Lejteny. The fact that the freeway “grew on” someone’s tastes doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s the single ugliest public construction in Quebec, and probably rates in the top 10 in the world.

The fact that one, two or “160 to 200” dwellings are going to lose their artificially low priced, heat-spewing and ecologically damaging apartments doesn’t match the disaster of human loss when part of the structure collapses, because we all know it will. And when a lane falls on one of these duplexes, the $700 5 ½ won’t look like such a good bargain anymore. Because yet another borough councillor wants to win political credit by pushing for “some sort of co-op for expropriated residents” doesn’t mean that we citizens will not see through the failures of the borough of the Southwest. We already have too much social housing in the borough, we need sustainable and concrete improvements on all other fronts of borough life. My street has never ever been cleaned by the city, we do all the work ourselves, and the hockey rink nearby doesn’t even have snow plows for the players to remove the snow from the ice.

The Turcot Interchange needs to go. I refuse to mortgage the future of my children in order to maintain an engineering failure. All other big cities in the world have highways crossing them at land level. The folly of buried or elevated highways in Quebec has time and time again demonstrated its brutal shortfalls.

As for the health impact, there’s a cheap and clean noise and sound protection out there; it’s called trees. Drive to Boston, drive to Toronto (on the Don Valley Parkway), drive to any city with intelligent engineers designing it and non-corrupt politicians leading it and you’ll notice something. You’ll notice that all you need is a 10-metre band of trees around the road, protecting inhabited areas from smoke and noise.

I’m tired of citizens and politicians of this city thinking only about their own interests and stalling development around them. We need to embrace change and contribute our ideas to it instead of blindly rejecting and letting others make decisions, mostly bad ones, for us. And this is especially true in the Southwest.

And instead of banalities of the sort of “crumbling beauty,” your journalist should have attempted to provide a viable solution to the Turcot problem, which I will do for him, pro-bono. What we need is for the interchange to be replaced by highways on embankments, a system of green-belts around the highways to protect the health of the citizens, a park to protect the Falaise St-Jacques and a new commuter train linking the downtown core with the PET airport, and serving the Southwest in between.

>> Eugene Nicolov

AIDS fluff

[Re: “Let there be light,” Riff-Raff. January 29] Let this be very clear: AIDS is NOT just an urban myth, “you know, the kind of made-up bullshit fear-mongering the establishment uses to keep you in line.” I understand that Raf Katigbak’s fluff column is rarely more than just fluff and that the Mirror is entertainment journalism, free with lots of advertising. Harmless stuff, mostly.

But to suggest that AIDS is anything less than absolutely deadly real, especially in such frivolous, useless fluff is the height of irresponsible journalism. Wake the fuck up, please, editors at the Mirror and Raf Katigbak.

In the coming weeks, I hope that a comprehensive, up-to-date article all about the killer AIDS virus will appear in the Mirror. A cover story even. Want more information? Tell Raf to Google AIDS.

Casually undermining the popular awareness of the vicious, deadly and completely real AIDS virus for a childish laugh about a trip to the fake-and-bake does nothing to honour the very real conditions of those living with the virus today, nor the memories of those who have died of it, nor those thankless many individuals who work hard every day to find a cure.

>>Alan Yates

Letters unite world

[Re: “All-Earth government,” News, Jan. 29] Thank you for your informative article about World Federalism. Your reporter provided excellent background to the ideas behind our goal of globalizing peace and justice, through an eventual democratic world federation.

One inaccuracy, however, about our branch activities. In addition to three or four public meetings with eminent speakers (and only one annual luncheon), for many of us, our most satisfying involvement is through our letter-writing groups.

Writing in a group, based on well-researched information, briefly discussed, is a satisfying use of an hour or so. Recent topics have included the tar sands and climate change, national defence and Afghanistan, cluster munitions, and the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Responses to our letters indicate that our opinions carry some weight, greater than a form letter or petition. Everyone is welcome to join us.

>> Carol Greene, President
Montreal Branch WFMC

WE WELCOME LETTERS TO THE EDITOR!