With the Fairview Container Port now an active place of industry once again, residents in areas immediately adjacent are growing weary of hearing the sound of train whistles at all hours of the day. It’s a byproduct of progress that they are finding a little irritating of late, and one that they are looking to their elected muncipal representatives to remedy.
To that end, city council will entertain a delegation on Monday evening and then introduce a report into an anti whistling bylaw, that will most likely be designed to bring some peace and quiet to those who’s nerves are now being jangled.
Included in the city council agenda posted on line, is a copy of the petition of local residents, as well as a collection of documentation that pertains to the case of the whistling train engines…
I find this very amusing actually. An Anti-whistle bylaw.
Next the “residents in the areas” will be complaining that the containers are too loud when they are being loaded… or even that things are working too well, and they want the workers to stop working so hard.
I find that grossly offensive. I grew up on Graham and I’m certainly not rich. Either way, clearly it’s you who’s the snob.
This bylaw might seem silly–but those things are quite loud and can easily wake people from sleep. This bylaw is no different than noise bylaws already in place so that parties don’t disturb neighbours… there’s no reason CN can’t follow the same idea.
This is an absurd request by the residents of the area. The whistles are a safety device and there are crossings at MacMillan and BC Ferries. In a populated area it makes even more sense to use the whistles than in a non-populated area.
This reminds me of an article I read recently about Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan and his request to have fire trucks in Vancouver go without their sirens at night.
From what I recall when the small community I was living in until recently was trying to reduce the warning blasts from 100+ car coal trains passing through town six or more times a day, the only way to stop the warning horns is to get the railway crossings fully automated. By this I mean the long, lit-up arms that come down when the train starts it’s approach, blocking all traffic from going into the train’s path. As for warning toots when the trains are in their yards, I have to think that they HAVE to use their horns, it’s a safety feature that would be hard to replace for the yard workers.
Oh and good luck with getting the automated arms in very fast; it took years for CN to get around to putting the one up but I guess if the protest is loud enough they may pay more attention. I know that we lived about two blocks away from a crossing that had numerous coal trains going though but was not automated and you learned to sleep through the horns after a while…
Ahhhhhh… the price of developement. If it isnt one thing it is another. First it is developement on bones and now it is the noise. And we still havent hit the targeted capacity yet…
SHUT UP!!! You ARE rich like everyone else here!!!
We the Westview people (I the only one who owned a country) wanted to tell CN to stop blowing whistles so we can have our beauty sleep and let somebody get run over by trains, but we can’t because CN won’t let us. So I got a plan: I will bribe CN’s CEO 10 tons worth of pieces of Chiang Kai-shek’s dismantled bronze statue if they let us sleep in peace.
If anybody got ran over by the train because we made CN not blow their whistles, then I will settle the victims or victims’ family with NTD$100,000,000 worth of Sogo gift certificates so they won’t sue our neighborhood.
We like being rich and power, but we hate smart people.
Well judging from the vitrol posted regarding the folks who live on Graham and Atlin, no one seems to care that they are also the highest taxed area in Prince Rupert which is by far the highest taxed community in B.C.
Given that the CN Trains are disturbing a residential neighbourhood, undoubtedly property values will be devalued and the rest of Prince Rupert can shoulder the taxes paid by the lil rich kid’s parents.
Seriously, every town that faces development goes through these issues and requiring automated railway crossings in a port development situated so close to major residential neighbourhoods is a no brainer. I would have thought that the visitors to HTMF would have been supportive of using technology to balance development and retaining a rural quality of life.
It seems to me that our City Council should show some backbone in dealing with CN, to deal with other o’s issues along the waterfront not just this one. For those who will point out that the Mayor and his five million dollar man would need a spine to do that, please overlook this flight of fancy on my part.
I have two issues with this.
Firstly because these people pay more money than the average person you seem to think they deserve a better standard of living or at least more consideration when any planning or developement goes on? Everybody has a say in the town, even though politics IS fueled by $$$, the principal is equality. I know it doesn’t work that way.
And secondly the post is about a Noise by-law, not a motion to put in automated railway crossings. If the residents of this area, who do pay such an exorbitant amount of taxes came up with this instead of just saying stop the whistles maybe this topic would have been supported more. As a result the residents come off as complainers rather than problem solvers with the community interest in mind rather than just their own.
I’ll only comment on two issues although your post seems to indicate a multitude of other issues. I wish you luck with finding professional help for the others.
First Issue. Thanks for letting me know what I seem to think but you are wrong.
Second Issue. I’ve attached a copy of the letter that was written by the residents of the area to the five million dollar man at city hall. If you had bothered to read the background on this topic as pointed to by the Podunkian, you would have spared yourself the distinction of shooting off your mouth on something you obviously know little about…
You will find the attached shows the residents did recognize the value of the port and did recommend a number of solutions as set out in legislation. If you had taken the time to read the background, you would have seen that the residents researched how the municipality needs to enact an anti noise bylaw as the first step in eliminating whistles in residential areas and basically presented the five million dollar man with a ready made solution.
A tip to the wise… to be a problem solver… one needs to take the time to inform themselves on an issue before opening their yap.
Oh, I was just being silly… My completely POOR mother once complained that the NOON clock whistle in the centre of a mining town woke her her up every day! Poor people are stupid too!
Well, for the most part,they have a right to complain about the noise! As do we all.
The residents Seal Cove have heard float planes all summer! and fall! yet nothing has been done in the 18 yrs I have lived here, to tone them out?? Also On foggy days could the boats in the harbour just use radar,and not there horns!!Really?? What Next!Stop the fish smell from that end also?? wait in line like the rest!(But Herb lives there?)and as I see in the whole, their taxes will go down.
And, as we see else where,there are better views,for less…$$ and many other areas that are already, a close second to the new Industial view zone’s…Tax base. It just nice to see it even out once and a while… For progress…
Has anyone ever formed a petition and tried to deal with the issue–or are you saying that no one ever came by to fix it for you?
The thing I’m really finding disgusting here is that many people against the idea seem to be against it because “it’s just a bunch or rich people.” Whether or not they’re taxed highest, or if some of the people in the area make a decent amount of money–it doesn’t matter. They have the same right to bring forth an issue to their city council. It seems to me that some of you are just bitter because you never took the initiative to fix any problems in your own areas–then again, it’s wayyy easier to complain about rich people.
As for Mr. Pond living in the area–I didn’t know that he did, but you’re probably right–and at any rate Payne lives there too. They’ll both remove probably remove themselves from any vote that happens, as they’d have conflicting interest.
I live close to the hospital, and I have the same right to a good night’s sleep as anyone. Therefore, I demand that ambulances restrict their sirens to daylight hours.
Have we tried not being pussies, and coping with a little adversity?
I’m not commenting on any demographic or social class here (otherly than overly-litigous wimps with a sense of entitlement).
Of course, the basic assumption in this statement is that someone - anyone - on htmf is intending to be a problem solver. But that would require actually DOING rather than just complaining - after all, htmf’ers or not - we are Canadians, we would rather just belly ache.
