I write regarding Robert Bishop’s Oct. 17 letter on St. John’s walking trails. The city’s plan for “shared use paths” is utter poppycock! You cannot be all things to all people.
The trail to Western Brook Pond is a perfect example of how turning a lovely walking trail into a shared use path has destroyed the natural habitat and opened the pond to irredeemable excess pollution, and this in Gros Morne National Park. That was a federal government mistake but this would be a mistake that would be city council’s.
There are bikers and walkers. Bikers get from A to B faster. Walkers sometime stop and enjoy the scenery which will be destroyed if this plan goes through. We have had visitors from the U.S. with whom we have walked around Quidi Vidi Lake and up Rennie’s River trail. They were amazed at the unspoiled beauty in the middle of the city. We have a heritage of trees and stream. Let us maintain, not destroy them.
I write as a very senior citizen who walked and biked everywhere in my youth and still enjoy a slower walk on our picture-perfect trails. If this plan goes through, all will be lost. To quote a Joni Mitchell song: “Don’t it always seem to go / That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. / They paved Paradise / Put up a parking lot.”
Elizabeth Winter
St. John’s
