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Your community newspaper • Founded in 1891 • www.theprogress.com • Tuesday, December 14, 2010
No transit to Eagle Landing in short term But city is aware of the call for bus service to the new shopping area Jennifer Feinberg The Progress Chilliwack residents are starting to press city officials about when bus service to the Walmart on Eagle Landing Parkway will start. “The answer is we’re working on it,” said Mayor Sharon Gaetz, who said city hall is currently fielding at least one call a week on the topic. The closest bus stop at the moment is near Stream, but the big-box store is still another 300 metres away. “Council is in discussions with the transportation advisory committee and several options are being weighed,” she said. While travelling on the Santa bus recently, the mayor had several riders specifically requesting a bus route to the new retail development known as Eagle Landing, located north of the Evans overpass. “We know that people who used to take the bus to shop at the malls, are missing that opportunity with new location,” she said. “We’re telling them it’s in the works, but it may not happen immediately.” One transit priority the city is looking at is a bus from Sardis to downtown, with the possibility of service every 15 minutes. Another is a route that would go along Evans Road to Eagle Landing Parkway, down Ashwell, past Prospera Centre and along Hodgins to the hospital and back again. “In order to do that it would take two buses and two drivers, and all the associated costs and maintenance,” said Gaetz. “I know it seems like a simple problem with a simple solution, but it turns out it’s not as simple as some may think.” jfeinberg@theprogress.com
Gary Palaniuk holds one of the flood lights he rewired to use in his outdoor Christmas extravaganza.
JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Taking Christmas lights to a new level Katie Bartel The Progress Gary Palaniuk was never a Christmas lights kind of guy. They were a waste of time, cost too much money, looked tacky, and were a major storage hassle. For almost 10 years, his house on Diamond Crescent went through the holiday season with not one light tacked to it. But then last year, when his soon-to-be wife Ashala moved in, everything changed. She wanted lights. She loved Christmas lights, loved seeing houses glow with the festive red, green, blue,
white, any coloured lights. Gary put up a fight, but eventually caved and allowed Ashala a set of lights on the bushes in the front yard. “But no lights on the gutters,” he said firmly. Fast forward a year. The Palaniuk house is now aflutter of colour. Four thousand LED lights – three sets of which are on the gutters – and six flood lights flashing purples, blues, reds, greens. They’ve got lights in the trees, lights in the bushes, lights on handmade poles and handmade Christmas trees – all of which are choreographed to songs like We Wish
You a Merry Christmas, Jingle his hands. He knew how to work Bell Rock, and Sleigh Ride. a soldering iron, knew how to And all of it, Gary’s idea. identify resistors, knew how to What? rewire electronics. How did that happen? This, he thought, was right up One year ago, shortly before his alley. Christmas, Gary was He joined online challenged. He had forums to discuss just seen a musically hobby, downvideo-online] the synched Christmas loaded free software light show on a www.theprogress.com to help design the house on Fairfield concert, and on Island. Boxing Day, he Interesting, he thought, his loaded up shopping carts full of mind instantly spinning into discounted Christmas lights. overdrive. For a full year he worked on See, while Gary wasn’t a fan the project. He built his own of Christmas lights, he was a fan circuit boards, rewired light of electronics and working with Continued: LIGHTS/ p4
$1.25 9-10F JA24