Social Concerns
"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."
- From The Great Law of The Iroquois Confederacy
The environmental harm to a community can be so high, as has happened with other speedway projects, that any benefits it might bring to the community are more than offset by additional costs.
Fort Erie is presently a community that attracts new residents when they discover our outstanding quality of life. Situated in the Carolinian life zone, we have one of the most gentle, moderated climates in Canada. We have some of the best freshwater, sandy beaches for swimming and sailing. We have amazing views all along Lake Erie and the Niagara River. For those who enjoy biking and rollerblading, we have the Friendship Trail and Niagara Parks’ river trail. For those who enjoy hiking we have Shagbark Nature Park as well as Point Abino, with Marcy’s Woods, one of the most important ecological treasures remaining on this planet.
The best growth strategy for a community in the 21st century is to sustain a high quality of life. Recent improvements in information technology now allow quality employers to attract the best and smartest employees by agreeing to let them live wherever they prefer. Fort Erie can now keep many more of its brightest youth who will no longer need to leave our town to secure work.
Our residential character gives us a reliable tax base, and we can continue to grow at a steady, sustainable rate, by attracting new residents looking for a better quality of life. But only if we avoiding incompatible development that might harm our quality of life, or a venture whose scale is so large such that our community will become too heavily dependant on its fortunes. We support the development of green business and industry that would protect and enhance the environmental quality of Fort Erie.
The proposed speedway project is inconsistent with Ontario’s Places to Grow strategy, and will make it difficult to sustain residential growth in Fort Erie. The noise generated by the racing events will be heard throughout most of Fort Erie and will be oppressive for those living in closest proximity, some less than two kilometres from the proposed site. According to our research, noise standards are frequently violated and noise is a major discomfort and source of complaints for residents living within five miles of similar speedway sites in the United States.
Here are some links we hope will give you a sense of the impact speedways are having on other communities.
Our residential character, our sustainable growth, our natural treasures and our quality of life - all of this will be put at risk by the nature and scale of the proposed speedway project.