Editor, The News:

Re: Dollars dished out for 224th St. (The News, Sept. 25).

A small number of business people in Maple Ridge’s downtown are, it appears, loudly resisting change where change is most urgently needed: the upgrading of sections along 224th Street and Lougheed Highway.

Apparently six months of construction may put this group of retailers out of business.

On this particular issue – and here is the irony – I’d urge that Mayor Ernie Daykin, council and staff turn a blind eye, a deaf ear and go into stonewall-mode to thwart the Luddites. They had no difficulty do so when they wrong-footed the community on Jackson Farm (but that, as they say, is another story).

For decades the business community and others have fought tooth and nail privately and publicly to see our downtown preserved and developed into the terrific place it can be.

Now, on the brink, of starting this work, we hear from some that they will be put out of business as a result. Where were these people when we went through the SmartGowth on the Ground charrettes?

True, it was sad to see a handful of retailers bite the fairy dust during the very poorly managed Memorial Peace Park project. Following the work closely, it often seemed that the job was going in slow motion, backwards. One can only expect that the contractors and district overseer has learned a little from the first go-around on 224th and will approach the next stages with better planning and enhanced efficiencies. There is absolutely no doubt that this work must be done urgently and properly. It lays the foundation for what many have dreamed of and worked for over a long, long period of time.

Old school Maple Ridge needs to give way to modernity, and get past contemplating its navel.

The surrender to growth is often painful. The Canada Line is a great example of this sort of public debate. The hard fact is that once the bankruptcies have passed and hue and cry has diminished everyone, businesses and the community is left with greater values that will carry them through the decades to come.

There was resistance to the West Coast Express – over-subsidized, they complained – now it is standing room only and the service is expanding. The Canada Line – it will prove to be the greatest public transport conduit in Metro Vancouver. Ditto the Golden Ears Bridge. Ditto the Pitt River Bridge. These projects did not materialize from under a magician’s cloak, or pop rabbit-like out of hat. They are needed, planned and worked on by many with the input of many. They are job generators and life-style enhancers.

To the naysayers of this gift of $5 million, one might suggest that they apply a sprinkling of imagination and in their mind’s eye walk down Lougheed and 224th on a spring day in 2010. The pain will be over and the benefits will be apparent.

We should welcome with arms each new construction site that starts anywhere in our downtown.

We may then be able to echo the immortal words of Dr. Frankenstein: “It’s alive, it’s alive!”

The property and business owners need to take a deep breath and plunge into the future; the water is only cold on entering, once you are in, it’s fine.

A Maple Ridge population of 100,000 is nearer to hand than anyone dare admit. It would be better to plan for it now than after the fact.

Claus Andrup

Maple Ridge