High Falls Road admittedly can be a challenging drive with its twists and hills.

But it is no worse than many other secondary roads in the district, sleepy byways serving only residents and the occasional delivery van. Yet the District of Muskoka has trumpeted an overly ambitious, wasteful and needless plan to rebuild the road. Nothing as simple as a little repaving, but a massive gutting and widening of the right of way, including a wide bicycle path, that includes the expropriation of property, relocation of some small buildings and massive blasting of yet more ancient Muskoka rock.

Forget for the moment that the blasting will ruin the summer for those of us who live on either side of the river. At least that will be temporary. Not so the destruction of yet more rocks and trees.

I challenge both the district and their consulting engineers, C.C. Tatham and Associates, to answer these questions, all of which were evaded at an open house in December.

1. When local municipalities are in such straitened circumstances that they are raising parking rates and threatening to charge non-users for water and sewage service they do not receive, how do they justify this major expenditure on a secondary road?

2. Why was High Falls Road not closed at Hwy. 11 as was announced several years ago?

3. Will the district impose weight limits to keep big construction trucks from using High Falls Road?

4. Is this project part of the long-range plan for a northern bypass?

5. Will the proposed bike path be open to snowmobiles in the winter?

6. How many people have been killed or seriously injured on High Falls Road in the last 10 years?

We residents on the north branch of the river already have been through this losing game with Lakeland Power and their rash expansion of the High Falls generation plant. Despite the facade of public consultation, the project was built precisely as first proposed; promises to beautify the area and maintain the full flow of the falls have not been kept.

This road project is a needless waste of our tax dollars, an affront to those of us who built our homes to enjoy the peace and beauty of the area, and yet another sorrowful example of the folly of blasting, paving and clear-cutting this glorious part of Ontario.

Dick Smyth

Bracebridge