Unco-ordinated traffic lights drive frustration
Going north on Blanshard Street from James Bay, while travelling at the speed limit, I encountered 10 red lights between Courtney Street and Saanich Road. As a resident of Victoria since 1990, I am surprised that the City of Victoria has not been able to devise a traffic-light pattern that will permit the smooth flow of traffic in a north and south direction on Blanshard and Douglas streets.
I understand that the mayor and city council are eager to provide a 鈥済reen鈥� environmental standard for the city. I challenge the mayor and the manager of engineering to get off their bicycles and drive on Blanshard to see for themselves how bad the light situation is. Perhaps the manager could provide the mayor and council statistics on the impact of braking, accelerating and idling at intersections that these unco-ordinated traffic lights cause.
Or is this an effort by city council to drive up the frustration levels and road rage of drivers in a not-too-subtle way so they abandon their cars? Do the mayor and council ever take the bus service with crowded and infrequent service, which also pushes citizens to drive instead of taking the bus?
A frustrated senior citizen.
Peter Davis
James Bay
Inner Harbour traffic turns off visitors
I would be shocked if I am the first visitor to Victoria to write about the traffic around the Inner Harbour.
My wife and I visit your spectacular city at least annually, usually near our wedding anniversary. We were so taken with your part of Canada that we lived and worked on Pender Island for a number of years.
Although this is a letter of complaint, it is meant to be constructive.
Government Street and Belleville Street in front of the Empress and the former wax museum are reminiscent of the 1950s cruising craze. Motorcyclists with after-market mufflers, fast and furious compacts, and old-fashioned hot rods use those streets to advertise their horsepower with high-revving engines.
There are parts of Victoria that celebrate another age and place that attract us to your city. The traffic around the Inner Harbour has the opposite effect.
Would it not be a viable option to make this area a pedestrian-only walkway, banning all traffic except the horse-drawn carriages?
Landscaping and artwork would enhance the effect of a peaceful but vibrant downtown with an international flavour.
You have a gem of a city, but a little burnishing would help.
Michael Hudson
Bend, Oregon
Protesters use 鈥榟ate鈥� to聽bully people
Re: 鈥淕ender-issues talk in Oak Bay cut short as protests break out amid packed crowd,鈥� May 3.
I attended the meeting on May 2 where Jenn Smith was speaking, to hear another view on the sexual-orientation, gender-identity curriculum in B.C.
Why is restricting a person from stating an opposite view of an issue by using negative actions such as foul language, jumping in front of people and yelling in their faces, using loud noise-makers and not allowing the person to speak not a true form of 鈥渉ate鈥�?
Why are we allowing the term 鈥渉ate鈥� to be used as an emotional form of bullying? This is not unlike the action taken by the brownshirts against the Jews 80 years ago.
This is a very sad comment on our society today. Is free speech only free if I always agree with your side of the spectrum?
Barbara Brandon
Victoria
Sight of evictions was聽disgusting
My fianc茅e and I are in the market for our first home, and recently we witnessed a sight that will be forever seared in my memory.
We were taken to a building near Mayfair mall, where we saw the tenants of a building evicted to sell the units as condos; most of the residents were older. Being there felt disgusting.
Most of these people had obviously called this building home for years or even decades. We were toured through the building, showing its features and amenities, as the poor residents packed up their lives so the landlord could make a dollar.
Is this the Victoria we want to live in? I have read about this happening, but seeing it firsthand was repulsive to a degree I聽have not felt in a long time.
This is 2019, not the 19th century, and this goes against every thread of common decency that I have been raised to believe in. Something needs to be done about the erosion of rental property in this city, as obviously this is not an industry that can regulate itself.
Patrick van der Loos
Saanichton
Gas hike small part of聽car ownership
Re: 鈥淣ew Alberta refinery could help with squeezed gas supply: Horgan,鈥� April 27.
High gas prices have made the news (again). I sat down, did the math and found the increase will cost me only $120 annually.
My car, if you account for maintenance, depreciation, financing and insurance, costs about $8,000 a year. Rent, utilities, phone and internet for my one-bedroom cost $22,200. If we have the infrastructure, I can choose to drive my car less, but I will always choose to have a roof over my head.
I hate driving to work. However, our government鈥檚 choices make us dependent on the automobile for daily life, and thus forced to spend absurd amounts on what should be a luxury item. If politicians actually cared about the ordinary person, they would give us options to reduce car dependency (more bike lanes, better transit, etc.) and work to reduce the cost of necessities such as housing.
Thomas Martin
Victoria
We need to find sustainable packaging
The acceptance of Styrofoam and flexible packaging material at Recycle B.C. is a very necessary need in our community. Otherwise, we will see it left on the ground and eventually it will migrate into our no-longer-pristine sea.
What is the reason for no longer accepting these materials if we continue to allow business to use them for their products? Is it because the Philippines is no longer accepting our recycled garbage? So now what?
Our blue box won鈥檛 take these materials and our landfills are filling up with polluting waste such as this that will, in microscopic form, eventually leach into the food chain.
There must first be legislation forcing vendors to accept returned packaging and buyers to return it to them. But this would produce more GHGs from the return delivery.
A much better fix is to develop and require sustainable and safe forms of packaging that can be enforced as replacements for present technology.
Susan Ikeda
Saanich
Riding offers chance for reconciliation
Much is made of 鈥渞econciliation鈥� these days.
On the political level, the riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith has a unique opportunity to set an example for other ridings. Within its boundaries there are not one but three unique Indigenous communities, the Snuneymuxw First Nation, the Snaw-Naw-As, and the Lyackson.
Nanaimo-Ladysmith has an opportunity to go beyond 鈥渞econciliation鈥� into 鈥渃ohesion,鈥� a partnership based on the various Indigenous concerns widely shared in non-Indigenous communities.
Of mutual interest is the exploitative practice of clear-cut old-growth logging, culminating in shipping the logs abroad, along with the good-paying jobs we鈥檇 benefit from if such logs were processed here Ikea-style.
Fish farms threaten the very existence of our salmon population.
Fracking is a system that devours vast amounts of ground water, which is permanently polluted by the caustic chemicals required to break down the rock formations that contain natural gas.
On all such issues, the non-Indigenous community has made little progress. A partnership with our Indigenous communities, far smaller in number but armed with First Nations ancestral rights to bring to the table, offers new possibilities.
Strategic voting for candidates representing whichever party is temporarily in power in Ottawa so Nanaimo will have a 鈥渟eat at the table鈥� hasn鈥檛 worked.
It鈥檚 time we set up our own 鈥渃o-operative table鈥� with Indigenous communities, to protect our environment and foster the creation of environmentally compatible jobs.
Edwin Turner
Nanaimo
Basic economics in聽eight words
Re: 鈥淢unicipal tax hikes are unsustainable,鈥� letter, May 1.
Free? Nothing is free, not the air we breathe, the water we drink, the waste we produce and certainly not maintaining a fleet of belching buses. Somebody has to pay the salaries, replacement, the gas, oil and repairs, and that somebody is the taxpayer.
鈥淭here ain鈥檛 no such thing as free lunch鈥� was the adage of the 1930s and the definition of economics in eight simple words. Some governing bodies do not seem to understand that there must be a balance between the grandiose voter-pleasing ideas and the ability of people to pay.
Luckily, the mayor of View Royal has voiced his reservations and we await some thoughts from the mayors of Saanich, Langford, Oak Bay and other areas on the Greater Victoria bus route.
Mary Ross
Saanich
