From the Nanaimo Daily News: Islanders consider bridge option in upcoming survey: VIU students poll Gabriolans on their transportation views.

Vancouver Island University students have finished drafting the questions for a survey of 10% of Gabriola Island residents that will gauge public opinion about a bridge and other transportation options.

The issue was raised last spring by B.C. Ferries CEO David Hahn, who offered up to $5,000 to measure support for a bridge, at the request of Gabriola resident Jeremy Baker.

Baker sees a bridge as a viable transportation alternative amid rapidly rising ferry fares on a route plagued by service problems. VIU was asked to do the survey because its students provide a ready workforce and with the faculty’s survey experience it can formulate questions that will yield statistically accurate information.

The questions were recently forwarded to Andre Lemieux, chairman of the Gabriola Ferry Advisory Committee, which wants to see them before they go out to 450 Gabriolans.

Opponents are angry though, and the Islands Trust, which has a mandate to protect the Gulf Islands through land use planning and regulation, has a standing policy against linking any of the islands by bridge.

I hope I get to be one of the blessed ten percent who’ll get that survey, because I’ve got really strong opinions about this issue. I think a bridge is a stupid idea. I moved here to live on an island, not in a Nanaimo suburb.

[The Nanaimo Daily News article is no longer available on the newspaper's website.]

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