To the editor:
When Port Arthur and Fort William were in their formative years, plans were made for the layout of both towns.
These plans included typical city planning with such things as main streets, residential subdivisions, schools, hospitals, areas for commerce, rail layouts, etc.
These layouts followed logical thinking and all successful cities evolved from the experience drawn from the past.
Port Arthur and Fort William were very well laid out with good traffic patterns, residential layouts took advantage in Port Arthur of the hill overlooking the wonderful harbour vistas. Commerce logically followed the access to the water and shipping as did rail.
Each budding town had its own business districts, transportation systems, hospitals, schools and above all they had their own personality.
This was very important considering how isolated these two towns were from other major communities.
Rivalry fuelled progress in so many positive ways. As the years passed and the towns grew, eventually the inevitable happened and they melded into one – geographically, commercially and politically. Now we have one city that is still struggling to define its centre and with two road maps that don’t go anywhere.
The city spends large amounts of the taxpayers’ money trying to make this side of town look progressive and then they run across to the other side of this disjointed community to make it look progressive.
Is it working?
Thunder Bay is here to stay and I think it’s about time that we look at the same system that our forefathers that started these communities used.
That is to have a master plan for this struggling new city that would take it into the future on a course for success.
We need to look at our city from high above and consider the big picture for progress as the short sighted approach by altering a bit here and a bit there without considering the whole, will never work.
Ron Limbrick, Thunder Bay
