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Media Reports and Editorial Opinion on Victoria’s Blue Bridge
Since the January 4th counter-petition deadline, and the special council meeting on January 7th local, regional and national media have weighed in on what is essentially an historical community action against the plans to replace the Johnson Street Bridge.
Times Colonist
Victoria voters to decide Johnson Street Bridge’s fate … but when?
Bill Cleverley – Jan. 8th ”A referendum will be held on the future of the Johnson Street Bridge — but just when is up in the air. Faced with an overwhelming number of petitions demanding a vote on borrowing $42 million toward the $63-million bridge-replacement project, Victoria councillors yesterday decided to let the borrowing bylaw die. Under provincial rules, it would have had to proceed with a vote within 80 days. While a packed gallery looked on, council directed city staff to gather additional information on both replacement and refurbishment options and report back on possible timelines and public engagement.”
Jody Paterson: A bridge too fast brings a sharp rebuke
“…it was council who created the “alternate approval process” that brought us to this point. Usually the city lets its citizens participate in the decision-making process, but this time council took the position that the answer was “yes” unless they heard otherwise by Jan. 4 from at least 10 per cent of eligible city voters. So those with concerns about the need for a $63-million rebuild of the bridge set out to collect enough signatures to make that happen. That they succeeded isn’t a blow to representative democracy, as Hunter portrayed it at the Dec. 10 council meeting (see the B Channel video at bchannelnews.tv). It’s just the only option people had to try to slow the train down.”
Victoria News
Citizens earn right to vote on bridge plan
Roszan Holmen – Jan. 8th “ “A lot of contention, I believe, has arisen based upon the time constraints that we thought we were under,” added Coun. Sonya Chandler. To avoid the 80-day referendum deadline imposed by the province, council abandoned its plan to borrow $42 million for the project. Instead, it to committed redefining the referendum question.
Council still doesn’t understand what people are unhappy with, said Coun. Lynn Hunter. It’s not clear whether people filled out a petition form because they oppose replacing the bridge, or they oppose borrowing $42 million, or they oppose council’s decision-making process, she explained.
The wording of the referendum question, however, is limited, said Rob Woodland, director of legislative services. The question can’t ask people to choose between two options, Woodland said, adding it must be a yes-or-no question. “I think any project of a significant magnitude for the Johnson Street Bridge will involve borrowing so the heart of the matter will be about borrowing for a purpose,” he said. “What’s left to determine is the purpose.” Council is now tasked with deciding whether that purpose is to replace or refurbish. Many councillors, however, reiterated their ongoing commitment to replacing the bridge.
NEWSMAKER OF THE YEAR: The Blue Bridge
Roszan Holmen Dec. 31st 2009 ”A rusty beast presenting a seismic liability and a nightmare for cyclists, or a tribute to Victoria’s industrial harbour whose maintenance would preserve a unique heritage structure and save a few million dollars. Without a doubt, Big Blue wins 2009’s award for most significant, expensive and divisive issue of the year.”
Globe and Mail
Victoria’s iconic blue bridge gets reprieve
Brennan Clarke Jan. 5th ”In an open letter posted on the Johnson Bridge.org website last week, Victoria Councillor Geoff Young criticized the city for failing to look closely at refurbishing the existing bridge, an option that would cost $35-million, staff estimates said.
“I actually think it could be much cheaper than that,” said Mr. Young. “If the counter-petition is successful, I would really like to see us look at the refurbishment option in the same degree of detail as we looked at the replacement option.” ”
So now we wait for the city to either engage its electorate honestly in a proper discussion or resume its propaganda war against the repair option.
Mike Lai from the City’s engineering dept was already out swinging on the 8th making his case against repair by saying there was no way to repaint without removing the bridge to another location.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for the City to do its due diligence.
Seems odd BC Ferries can paint and maintain bridging etc without disrupting the tavelling public. What is Mr Lie talking about? Moving the bridge elsewhere?I think it’s time for governance not decisions by interest groups such as a cycling coalition.
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Have you all taken a look at Counc. John Luton’s blog post in response to some questions raised earlier on Luton’s blog by Bernard von Schulman?
I understand Bernard’s appreciation of Luton’s response (it’s quite long), but Luton does remain adamantly insistent that replacement is the only way to address an overall transportation vision for the city (and the region).
Frankly, I’m getting a bit worn out by this “all or nothing” approach.
Back in the day when the automobile ruled supreme (as if it doesn’t still!), people said the same thing about highway/ freeway projects: “This is the only way we’ll be able to keep up!!!” So we built more roads to accommodate the cars – and did it help? Not really. Now it’s the cyclists who are using “integrated transportation” visions to beat us over the head with demands for new infrastructure that will really sink us into a sh*tload of debt. Is that reasonable???
To Bernard’s credit, he does keep after John Luton to ask if anyone has any real $number$ (vs pie-in-the-sky estimates) for this new (and untested) bridge design. If anyone believes this bridge – as shown in the renderings – will come in at $63million, they’re being very very naive. Or willfully ignorant.
When Mayor Fortin appeared “On the Island,” CBC’s morning radio talk show, he tried to peddle that same ill-informed crap about having to completely “move the bridge” to fix it, due to federal environment laws, thus making it “impossible to do”!
My reply stated we strip, clean, refurbish, repair & repaint large metal structures every day @ the Dockyard. We do all this while diligently observing environmental rules; including municipal, regional, provincial & federal. Almost all our work is done alongside, over water or next to the ocean.
Simply by doing things right, using correct materials, performing preventive remediation & using due diligence, Victoria can & should ensure this repair work is done here, in situ, without any great delays built-in to frighten harried taxpayers.
@Ryan : Fortin won’t go down without a fight. Watching him on the 7th made it clear that his mind cannot fathom or brook a reality in which he doesn’t get his way with the bridge.
Have a look at the 3rd video at http://bchannelnews.tv/?p=2959 to see him in full cognitive dissonance mode up to the point where Geoff Young drags him back to the reality the rest of us share.
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Councillor John Luton is obviously worried Victorians are thinking about ‘twinning’ or widening the Point Ellice or Bay Street Bridge, rather than tearing down and ‘replacing’ the Johnson Street Bridge, as he still perversely insists we must do.
On the former, he cites both size and costs of land acquisition on the east and west approaches as potential problems in a recent letter to the Editor of the monopoly daily:
http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/letters/Twinning+bridge+option/2444578/story.html
We need more information on these Bay Street Bridge options to prove that Mr. Luton’s scaremongering is unjustified.
I believe that we could refurbish the Johnson Street Bridge and ‘twin’ the Bay Street Bridge for less than the cost of demolishing and ‘replacing’ the existing heritage bascule rarity of Joseph Strauss.
But of course, I can’t prove it, and neither can Mr. Luton prove his position… yet.
One of the main issues with the Point Ellice Bridge is that when crossing heading west, traffic has three options when leaving the bridge. Left turn, straight ahead and a short right turn lane for about four vehicles. Two lanes heading west would improve the situation.
I believe the answer is to widen the present bridge into three lanes and suspend the sidewalk and bike path under the roadway. The new right hand land heading west would have to turn right on Tyee Road.
If you drive the section on Google maps, you can rubberneck around to your hearts content and see that it could be possible. Boulevards and hedges could be removed to widen the section east of the bridge.
The cost to do this would be far less than twinning the bridge.
I hope that city council will consider this option in their rethinking process, instead of crashing ahead as before.
Doesn’t Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin have better things to do in this post-petition period rather than to go on a useless junket to Communist China?
http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/victorianews/news/81790587.html
Up until very recently, the socialist mayor was in a very big hurry to demolish and replace our heritage bascule bridge.
Now, he apparently thinks he can afford to squeeze a taxpayer-funded trip into that once-crammed schedule of his.
Apparently the Chinese city to which he is bound has heritage dating back 2,500 years.
If anything tangible is to be gained for Victoria taxpayers from such a trip (and I am dubious about this point as former Mayor Lowe always came back empty-handed), perhaps the business-savvy Chinese Communists can show Mr. Fortin how to make money from showing tourists some of that ancient heritage.
It seems to me we will lose a significant touristic point of interest if we allow our philistine Victoria City Council under the questionable leadership of this incompetent poseur to trash our Joseph Strauss-designed Johnson Street Bridge.