LangleyAdvance
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Your community newspaper since 1931
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Your source for breaking news, sports, and entertainment: www.langleyadvance.com
Audited circulation: 40,026 – 32 pages
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Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, Roslyn MacVicar of CBSA, and Langley MP Mark Warawa unveiled the new design for the Aldergrove border crossing upgrade.
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International boundary
Ottawa sinks $17m into Aldergrove The Aldergrove border crossing hasn’t changed much for years, until now. by Matthew Claxton mclaxton@langleyadvance.com
The border crossing at Aldergrove is about to get bigger to handle the volume of traffic both now and into the future. Flanked by local mayors and Langley MP Mark Warawa, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney announced Monday a $17.7 million replacement and upgrade. In about 18 months, the old building will be gone and a new structure with more lanes, expanded facilities for commercial processing, and a Nexus lane, will be installed. There will be five new traveller lanes and two new commercial lanes for those coming into Langley from the United States. The Nexus lanes allow faster passage for
RCMP pursue two car thieves from above An assist from an eye in the sky helped find two alleged car thieves Friday morning. mclaxton@langleyadvance.com
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there was serious consideration given to completely shutting down all commercial traffic at Aldergrove, they noted. Yet the crossing is directly to the south of the large and growing Gloucester Industrial Estates, as well as being close to other industrial areas in Aldergrove and Langley. Warawa pointed out that it makes sense for many commercial travellers heading to and from Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows as well, Warawa noted. “It’s really the crossing of choice for a lot of people,” Warawa said. The expansion won’t change the hours of operation for the border crossing, which run from 8 a.m. to midnight. The chamber hopes the increased capacity will make that an easier sell if the volume is there in the future. The Aldergrove expansion is the last project in a string of expansions and modernizations that cost a total of $65 million over the last five years across western British Columbia.
Property crimes
by Matthew Claxton
Michelle Carduner
pre-approved travellers to the United States. The newly rebuild Aldergrove crossing is expected to be open by early 2016. During construction, commercial traffic will have to find an alternative route. The Aldergrove crossing has become the second-busiest commercial crossings in the Lower Mainland, behind only the Pacific Highway Truck Crossing in Surrey. It was built primarily for local passenger vehicles. Members of the Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce, including president Christine Simpson and executive director Lynn Whitehouse were on hand for the announcement. Along with local politicians, the chamber has been pushing for expansion of the border crossing for years, a fact alluded to by Warawa. The important thing is that this will allow for full commercial inspection facilities, said Simpson and Whitehouse. It was a little less than a decade ago that
Langley Mounties rounded up two suspected car thieves with help from the Air One helicopter and police tracking dogs Friday. It was in the hours just after midnight that a Langley RCMP officer on a routine patrol spotted a Honda Civic stopped on a quiet Walnut Grove Street, said Insp. Tim Shields, a regional duty officer. The Civic had two doors open, and one man was stand-
ing next to it. The second man was ducked down inside another nearby parked car, allegedly attempting to steal it. “When the two males saw the police, they jumped into the Honda Civic and took off,” said Shields. The officer on the scene tried to pull them over, but the Civic fled at high speed, heading east towards Fort Langley. While the officer on the ground didn’t chase the car, the Air One police helicopter, which now flies out of the Langley Regional Airport, was called in to assist. The Air One Tactical Flight Officer followed the Civic, using a thermal imaging camera, while it barrelled down Glover Road.
Shields said the Civic passed another car on a double solid yellow line, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with an oncoming vehicle. The driver of the Honda turned down a driveway on a rural street and the two men abandoned the car. They started running into a large farm property. More units, directed by the Air One officers, moved in on the ground, including a police dog handler and his German shepherd, Chad. Chad and his handler quickly pursued the two men, and they caught up with and arrested one of the two suspects. The second man tried to hide in the back of a pickup truck behind a farm house.
“Through the eye of the thermal imaging camera the male was glowing like a bright light against a black background,” said Shields. “There was nowhere he could hide.” More ground units moved in and arrested the second man without incident. The Civic the two were driving had been stolen from Surrey earlier on the night of April 10, but not yet reported stolen. The driver, 35, was prohibited from being behind the wheel of any car. Both he and his 31-yearold passenger are “well known to police,” said Shields. Charges of dangerous driving, flight from police, possession of stolen property, and attempted auto theft are being considered.