The cost of the Little River footbridge has just jumped from $2 million to $4.7 million.
In January, Sooke council awarded a $2 million tender for the Little River footbridge and trail. The footbridge will run from Sunriver to Poirier school and is touted to reduce congestion on Highway 14. The footbridge will be constructed a few hundred metres from the Throup Road Connector which will also have sidewalks and bike lanes.
In February, our politicians celebrated the footbridge with a groundbreaking ceremony and announced that $1.8 million of the footbridge costs will come from infrastructure grants and $200,000 will come from Sooke taxpayers through various town accounts.
A few weeks later, we find out that the $2 million footbridge tender is only part of the project and that another $2.7 million is needed, with $1.1 million of this new cost to be picked up by Sooke taxpayers. We also found out that the town has prioritized this new phase of the footbridge over sidewalks and bike lanes along Highway 14.
Old Sooke needs basic services. Many parts of Highway 14 have no sidewalks. Often pedestrians, seniors with walkers, mothers pushing strollers, children, people on mobility scooters and cyclists share the active road surface with heavy industrial vehicles, speeding cars, and construction equipment. Children going to three of Sooke’s four elementary schools and its high school walk or bike on Highway 14.
Why weren’t Sooke taxpayers told about this additional $2.8 million in footbridge costs at the time of the tender in January?
Why does Sunriver get several multi-million-dollar recreation projects including a new sports box, bleachers, a playground, a washroom with flush toilets, basketball courts, a soccer pitch, 50 new trees and a $4.7 million footbridge while old Sooke gets a quarter-acre dog park, a portable toilet at Ed MacGregor and Lions Park rezoned to commercial use?
And why will the residents of old Sooke need to walk and bike on a dangerously congested highway, long after Sunriver gets a $4.7 million footbridge?
J. Kent
Sooke
