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Floating bridge a solution

NANAIMO – Re: Conservatives float ferry tax credit, March 28.

To the Editor,

Re: Conservatives float ferry tax credit, March 28.

If anything should float, it should be a floating bridge to adjoin the mainland to Vancouver Island.

Building a bridge with pillars is in no way an option to the depths of Georgia Strait.

The only thinkable way is a floating bridge engineered in a way to overcome costs.

If you look at the many cable-type pillar bridges of today holding up roadway spans hundreds of feet long in midair, this kind of construction is mega dollars.

A cable system from a floating bridge to sea bed anchors makes more sense to control wave action and stabilize the entire length of roadway.

Design and build the floating concrete structure spans similar to the new Okanagan Bennett Bridge costing $144.5 million and finished ahead of completion date.

Just imagine driving 26 kilometres from Vancouver Island to the mainland in about 15 to 20 minutes and not having to wait in lineups, sometimes for hours for ferries.

Traffic could flow 24 hours a day, commercial trucks could operate through the night.

Not only would our tourism industry increase, tourists would come to drive on the world’s longest floating bridge.

Using a concrete floating bridge with cable systems of this magnitude would be  less costly to construct with less maintenance, no ferry fuel wastes, and environmental rewards.

Provincial and federal funding could complete the highway across Canada at a cost of a few billion dollars.

After all, in the last few years, the B.C. Ferry Corporation, as well as NDP and Liberal governments have wasted billions on ferries that have already been sold or sit idle at dock.

Michael Mosdell

Nanaimo