Re: 鈥淗orse carriage firms threaten to sue,鈥� May 22.
Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt is on the right track. This is not a new issue, but the time has come to seriously revisit the carriage-horse issue on downtown and adjacent neighbourhood streets.
Donna Friedlander, owner of Tally-Ho Carriages, says Isitt鈥檚 motion 鈥渕isses the whole premise of a horse-drawn carriage experience. Our services are about providing the public an opportunity to interact with and learn about our amazing horses, slow down and experience life at an easy pace, and remember our historical roots.鈥�
Fine, but let鈥檚 stop doing it on the busy streets of downtown Victoria. Vehicle and pedestrian traffic are much different today than they were 10 to 20 years ago.
There is a time and a season for everything, and horse-drawn carriages in downtown Victoria are long past their best-before date.
Get the tour operators and city planners together and come up with some options. One option could be to take tourists and the public from Ogden Point to Beacon Hill Park.
The current wastewater treatment project and forcemain installation along Dallas Road is an ideal time to plan for an alternative route and possibly lanes for horse-drawn carriages.
Although I am not pushing for a total ban on horse-drawn carriages at present, if the tour operators can鈥檛 see themselves moving from the existing location, I鈥檓 with Isitt: Ban the carriages by 2023 to help reduce traffic blockages downtown.
Byron E. Barnard
Victoria
