Letters for July 3

July 03, 2009

Letter to Editor

Bridge decision, oh, so typical

When the blue bridge fiasco started it was going to cost x amount of dollars to fix it and about double that to replace it with a “state of the art” structure.

Now the cost has doubled and the bureaucrats explain it by now saying the original estimate would only give us an average bridge. So typical!

One option hasn’t even been mentioned, which doesn’t surprise me, because no politicians have thought of it so it must not be viable, right?

There is a group that is trying to restore the historic roundhouse just up the road from the blue bridge. So why does the train have to go across the bridge in the first place?

Why not stop the train at the roundhouse, turn the whole thing into a tourist attraction, and put at least some of the saved taxpayers money that’s saved by not needing a tressle and railroad bridge towards the restoring of the roundhouse? Vic West benefits, the tourists benefit, the taxpayers benefit,and the bridge project is virtually cut in half.

It seems like a pretty viable option to me, but then I’m just Joe Citizen not a narrow-minded bureaucrat.

This thing was put on the fast track way to fast by the Victoria council by saying they didn’t know the cutoff date for the grants was so close, so they passed it. Didn’t know? These are the people who are spending our tax dollars.

So typical.

Larry Zilinsky

Saanich

No suggestions of alternatives offered

Missing from your article on complaints about the ongoing clumsiness of the Victoria police department and B.C. Transit’s efforts to prevent alcohol abusers from creating problems on buses are suggestions on alternatives. (You list vandalism and vomit, but not the disturbance, danger, fear, and noise experienced by responsible riders who do not impose themselves on others.)

One option is police on every bus. It’s expensive, but worthwhile to protect the innocent victims without impeding honest people. That is a life-fostering approach which is necessary in order to have a civil society.

Oddly, the complaints about positive action often come from those who like to complain about people’s behaviour in other areas such as politics and business.

Yet they seem eager to excuse Victoria’s intoxicant-abuse culture.

One Black Press writer made the outrageous claim that attempting to keep alcohol off buses was an act of encouraging driving while drunk. But that is individual choice, as is vandalizing and getting into an intoxicated state likely to result in throwing bodily garbage around.

Keith Sketchley

Saanich

Change not so bad – even with electric cars

There have been letters in this publication recently expressing concerns about the effects quiet electric vehicles might have on the unwary.

I don’t know if these people realize it but all cars licensed for the road come with a noise-making device: a horn. It is used by alert motorists to warn others who do not feel the need to think before heading into traffic that perhaps they should.

As well, there are hundreds of silent electric vehicles currently plying Vancouver streets (thronged, incidentally, with some of the daftest pedestrians in Creation) without causing excessive casualties. They are called trolley buses.

Honestly, what some people will say out of fear of new, unfamiliar things and of change in general.

Anthony van Osch

Saanich

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Letters for July 3

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