Dear Editor:
Michael Jackson’s nose job comes quickly to mind for the kind of “improvement” made to the Metrotown SkyTrain station. A most objectionable change for the putative better is the taking out of the above-ground, covered walkway traversing the station and the mall. No frequent transit user in the Metrotown mall area I have asked about that change did not miss the walkway.
Without the safety and shelter provided by the walkway, transit users and pedestrians, from their whatever-to-make-it-work-for-me (that is, rational) vantage point, resort to making runs across the chaotic, callous traffic of Central Boulevard, to changing traffic lights, to arriving buses and SkyTrains, to shelters from the rain and to infinite other good personal reasons.
The “improvement” design clearly has taken people out of safety and shelter to the dangerous, inconvenient conditions of the open street. Those who have had a part in the decision to remove the above-ground covered walkway are but amateurs at best.
With Michael’s “improved” nostrils, at least nobody has to reply on them to make everyday life safe, convenient and sense-making.
Eugene Ip, Burnaby
