Strangers help a woman find her way home
They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it certainly took a bus-load one day last week to help a woman. She had just been released from hospital, still wearing hospital night wear — and she was confused.
A passerby flagged down a northbound Quadra bus and got the driver to wait for the woman, who was using a walker. A passenger on the bus helped the woman get seated safely.
The concerned driver checked her destination. It turned out to be one bus stop away.
The same passenger helped her off the bus — and I am sure we all breathed a sigh of relief, along with concern that a patient with obvious handicaps had been sent out into the community with no support.
“The hospital should have called handyDART,” someone said. “Or a taxi,” someone else said.
Whoever you are, lady in yellow pyjamas, we wish you well. And we are glad you live in a big village with bigger hearts.
Anne Moon
Victoria
Sympathies to business dealing with this council
The juxtaposition of an article concerning Victoria council’s push to extend periods for pay parking in the downtown core to accompany their hike in parking rates and a letter writer extolling the visitor-friendly downtown of Palm Springs would be laughable if it didn’t make one cry.
On the one hand, Palm Springs seems to be doing everything right to encourage everyone, regardless of their chosen mode of transport, to frequent all it has to offer — and it seems to be wildly successful. Throngs of people no doubt make local merchants quite happy.
Then there’s Victoria. As Coun. Jeremy Caradonna put it: “It’s time to reduce subsidies we offer to parking. The polluter must pay, the user must pay.”
Putting aside the fact that bicycle riders have received millions in recent bike lane subsidies from Victoria and pay no user fees, including secure valet parking, I get the message loud and clear: As a senior car driver, I’m a polluting free-riding “user,” so it’s clear I’m not wanted downtown.
Lots of other area merchants would love my business so I’ll be going elsewhere. My sympathies to downtown Victoria merchants who, with so many other recent hits to their viability, now have Victoria council itself working to further reduce their customer base in the name of a “green“ agenda.
Kevin Bishop
Saanich
Raising parking rates will not help business
How does the city think by raising parking rates it will help business in the area? If people want to shop, they will go to malls where the parking is free.
Downtown is slowly becoming a dead zone and this is a nail in the coffin for downtown businesses.
Carol Dunsmuir
Victoria
Cyclists, it’s time for you to pay for valet parking
Victoria Coun. Jeremy Cardonna is quoted as saying “It’s time to reduce the subsidies we offer to parking, the user must pay.”
Well then, how much should we charge cyclists for using the taxpayer-funded bicycle valet service?
Tom Beattie
Saanichton
Plenty of places to dine outside of Victoria
Re: “Victoria mulls charging for downtown parking from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” March 8.
One “implication of extending pay parking to 8 p.m.” is that I will avoid dining out in downtown Victoria.
I’ll choose restaurants in Oak Bay, Saanich, Sidney, Westshore, Sooke, and so on … where parking remains at no charge and hassle free, before and after 6 p.m.
All the aforementioned municipalities and townships seem to keep up with “beautification, maintenance, cultural opportunities, new public parks and amenities,” without parking revenue.
I see this as another council proposal aimed at sabotaging struggling business owners in the downtown core.
Edward P. Baess
Victoria
Out of touch council that’s out to lunch
Once again, Victoria’s elite council of well-intentioned, but incredibly privileged members is coming after the very people they want to bring back to downtown.
After spending the past eight years alienating most people living in the Capital Regional District through, among other, elitist and able-ist social policies, clogging the city with bike lanes and functionally removing vehicle access, they now want us to pay more, and feel entitled in their direction.
This is just another example of how far out of touch and out to lunch council remains, and no better exemplified by Coun. Jeremy Caradonna’s insensitive sentiment.
Find another way that doesn’t require bleeding the tax base to subsidize council projects.
Density requires infrastructure, infrastructure requires workers. When workers can no longer afford to live, let alone park downtown, the game is over.
We are in a hiring crisis and a population demographic shift, we need workers. Most people can’t afford an electric bike, Jeremy.
Chris Forester
Esquimalt
Eliminate parking costs to help save downtown
Creating a disincentive to park in downtown Victoria is hardly a way of encouraging vibrancy. Shoppers and diners are already discouraged from visiting downtown by traffic, the homeless and vacant storefronts.
Decreasing free parking will only exacerbate the already significant challenges faced by downtown business owners.
My three hours of street parking downtown this morning cost $9! When my partner works out of his downtown office his daily parking is $14. On the other hand, eliminating or minimizing parking costs would increase the number of downtown shoppers and encourage office employees to return to their offices. Both of which would help downtown businesses thrive.
Increasing the time period for paid parking will have the opposite effect. This seems like such a basic logic, I fear for what other ideas are coming out of City Hall.
Brad Doney
Victoria
Chasing more people away from downtown
Just when you think Victoria council can’t get any more ignorant … it is considering charging for downtown parking from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Downtown Victoria is already suffering from “marginalized” people vandalizing their businesses and literally scaring people away from downtown, plus the absence of office workers.
Now it seems council is considering chasing more people away by extending paid parking hours.
Polite words fail me.
Julia Pollard
Victoria
Address real problems in downtown Victoria
Parking is an issue and raising the rates is just wrong, so Victoria’s mayor and council, like the previous clowns — no disrespect to clowns everywhere — want more money for cars to park downtown.
This move will only discourage more people shopping downtown. Our once beautiful and peaceful city is overrun with crime and flop houses and the occasional campground.
Seems that every level of government has let our most vulnerable people down. We need to put proper care facilities in place or these unfortunate souls will keep on dying on our streets.
Let’s address the real problems.
John Curry
Victoria
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