Consider apple trees when talking bike lanes
Let me start with an analogy: Imagine you have two apple trees. One is 30 years old, the other three. Would it make sense to compare the output of these two trees?
Then, having compared the output, would it make sense to rip out the younger tree, having concluded that it is a useless tree for bearing so much less fruit than its older sibling?
To say, “how can I afford this, I water and fertilize this young tree but it gives me only a handful of apples, yet with only a little effort I get so many from this older tree!”
It would obviously be ridiculous to do so. It’s the same with bike lanes. The network is young. It is small. It is incomplete. It needs to be nurtured.
Our car infrastructure is built out. The network is complete and universal, and has been for many decades. We have formed habits over generations around cars.
Therefore to compare the number of drivers to the number of cyclists, while seemingly intuitive and logical, is misguided and irrational.
Instead, perhaps we should ask if there are more people using the bike lanes, year over year, as the cycling network is built out.
But even if the networks were equivalent, to compare numbers still assumes that we are comparing apples to apples.
Bikes are far cheaper in every way both for the user and for the city, they promote health and happiness, and they reduce motor traffic — each cyclist is one less car in your way. This is to say nothing of their negligible pollution, reduced noise, and lessened threat to life and limb.
Therefore every person who chooses to take a bike lane instead of driving a car is a major win, both for themselves and for the rest of us too, so even if there were only a handful of users I would still say: bring on the bike lanes!
Michael van der Kamp
Victoria
Time is up for the NDP, let others try
Before the NDP closed debate to force through their contentious housing bills, Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon made a bold claim. He said unreleased economic modelling projected the bills would “reduce housing prices by seven to 14 per cent over five years because of the added supply.”
Now that the economic models have been released, we know that was a lie.
The authors of the study said no such thing. Housing prices will continue to increase. They simply won’t increase as fast. And even that expectation is unlikely. The outcome is contingent on a number of highly unlikely assumptions.
Last week Kahlon stated of similar measures undertaken in Auckland, New Zealand: “What we’ve seen in Auckland is prices stabilized, rents stabilized and rents went down.”
Another lie. No such thing happened.
It takes less than a minute of Google searching to learn that Auckland’s rents continue to increase. So much so, in fact, that it is now the third most expensive rental market in the world behind Sydney and Tokyo.
It’s time for the NDP to disappear. Unaffordable housing and rent, homelessness, overdose deaths, social disorder, a flailing health care system, unreliable ferry service … it’s clear this government is bankrupt of ideas as it lurches from crisis to crisis.
Over to the B.C. United and the B.C. Conservatives. They will never have a more perfect opportunity to banish the NDP to the fringes, if they can get their act together.
Mike Laplante
Saanich
More creativity, please with our new buildings
As I walk downtown I am struck not only by the unimaginative designs of the highrises but by the lack of green spaces for the residents.
Downtown needs to be livable in all aspects and creative planning is paramount. As there are no street trees or mini parks to speak of, require the developers to green the actual building or, for instance, have an apartment block built on stilts with a public park underneath.
Surely we can do better than the ho hum downtown now being allowed. Creative public input would undoubtedly do a better job than City Hall.
Nicola Ferdinando
Victoria
With coloured exhaust, we would change ways
I love cars and I love driving. Cars are much more efficient and less polluting than when I started driving more than 4o years ago, but the trouble is there are just way more people now and therefore many more cars on the road.
Some people think electric cars are the answer to all our pollution problems but they come with their own set of issues. I think the problem is that modern cars don’t show us the pollution they are emitting.
In warm weather the exhaust is invisible and in colder weather the cloud of fumes is temporary and disappears in seconds.
What we need to truly appreciate the amount of pollution we cause by driving an internal combustion engine is coloured exhaust. An additive in the fuel to make it orange or purple or what ever bright colour that catches the eye.
When I see a diesel engine spew black exhaust I think pollution. One day of brightly coloured haze in the city would have people thinking about their driving habits, but this is just a silly idea and the oil companies would never go for it.
C. Scott Stofer
Victoria
She is 81, and not to be trusted with narcotics
At 81 years of age, and many health issues along the way, I find myself a victim of the opioid crisis.
I’ve been experiencing intense, unrelenting hip pain for the past three weeks and, three doctors later, have not received anything to break this cycle.
My nine hour wait in ER got me an X-ray which showed nothing broken (so there was no problem) and pain treatment of Tylenol X.
I was refused anything stronger because “we don’t do that anymore,” leaving me to deduce that all patients are thought of as potential drug addicts.
My history includes several episodes of receiving narcotics for medical and surgical pain purposes and never becoming addicted. I guess old ladies can’t be trusted!
Carol Stanley
Victoria
We need to act soon to help our planet
Re: “In a serious climate crisis, there are no simple solutions,” commentary, Dec. 6.
Michael Murray’s commentary on “A global climate-change emergency statement for COP28” gets one thing right — this annual CarbonFest, now 70,000 strong, has been a failure on many levels and now that the lobbyists from Big Oil are out in force, it’s even harder to make the transformative changes we need.
Murrary is certain that people won’t give up their cars, stop using fossil fuels, or switch from eating burgers to insects or veggies anytime soon.
He is wrong.
Many people I know are trying hard to take personal responsibility for reducing their carbon emissions. Why is that? Because they understand that Mother Nature bats last.
If we don’t ditch fossil fuels ASAP as well as reduce our levels of consumption, all that we know and love is threatened. The science is clear.
We may not want to make these changes and it may be difficult to imagine another way of living on this beautiful planet, but we will be forced into doing so, one way or another.
To those who think change is impossible, what will it take for you to stop denying the realty of the crisis we face? Our leaders are having difficulty making the tough choices necessary because too many continue to cling to business as usual.
But the house that modernity built is crumbling. Things are falling apart and we are watching it happen on our screens in real time.
The sooner we face this sorry state of affairs, confront our fears, and grieve what has been lost, the more likely we will be able to find other ways to live together that respect the web of life. Earth needs our help, not more excuses.
Susan Draper
Victoria
Government, leave the free market alone
Be afraid when government portents to fix inflationary food prices they created in the first place. Be very afraid.
Our food distribution system is one of the finest in the world without government assistance. Remember ArriveCan at the airports? Just look how the government runs the passport and airport systems.
We buy food, shoes, clothes, coats, books, meals, devices, and services happily without government assistance.
Be very afraid of this government changing our free market system.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knows better even where angels fear to tread.
Patrick Skillings
Victoria
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