Letters #1 – Johnson Street Bridge Feedback

It’s been a busy few days. Allot of work on the website with a new Email subscribe system for our planned newsletter, an updated home page, new Johnson Street photos and a bridge culture page. We also have posters which anyone can download, print and display to get the word out – Colour and B/W

This morning we published a letter to council outlining questions and concerns all Victoria residents should be both aware of, and seeking answers. Ross Crockford, one of the johnsonstreetbridge.org directors, was also interviewed on CBC Radio Victoria 90.5, and a full half hour on CFAX this morning – we hope to have podcasts on the interviews up soon.

One of our goals is to raise awareness about the planned replacement of the Blue Bridge, and to provide a platform for your comments, questions and views. Your feedback is very welcome – and you can email us directly – info@johnsonstreetbridge.org

Let us know if you wish your letters to be published.

From Mike Elock – August 6th 2009

FYI – a copy of my letter to Councillor Geoff Young.

Dear Geoff,

I’m glad to hear that you’re out of step with your colleagues on the matter of the Johnson Street Bridge. In a city that’s growing ever more homogenized, it’s one of the things that sets Victoria apart. A couple of points, although I’m sure you will have thought of them already:

The issue has been raised of the difficulty and danger for cyclists crossing the bridge. There’s another bridge right next to it that’s used for about 5 minutes first thing in the morning, and another 5 minutes at the end of the day. Why on earth can’t we do what they do in many parts of Europe and the Far East – which is to use the rail bridge for cyclists? It would be easy enough to build a lightweight cycle track on either side of the rail line, and a proper crossing (so the cyclists can get around the vehicular traffic) at the approaches. And a barrier that can be lowered when the trains comes and goes. It’s the sort of thing they do all over the place in Holland, Sweden, Denmark. Copenhagen is a fine example where you can see this, even right in the busy centre of the city.

Question. Why are we even considering building something that will most probably encourage more private vehicles to come into the downtown area? Surely our objective should be to try and get commuters to collection points and then bring them into town on public transport – light rail or bus. It would seem to me that a new bridge would encourage more private transport, and more congestion. And where will it all go? If ever we needed a reminder to look at the bigger picture this is it.

Cost. Once the architects and planners and engineers get to work on a new bridge we will find that a $40 million price tag is a ridiculously low estimate.

Re-furbishing the bridge. Surely we can look at how they deal with environmental issues like the capture of toxic paint flakes in places that have dealt with far more difficult challenges in this regard than the one we have to deal with. The Golden Gate in San Francisco and the Forth Bridge outside Edinburgh spring most immediately to mind. Both of these authorities deal handily and inexpensively with this issue. Closer to home Vancouver has to deal with it, and so does Seattle. It’s not a big, or overly expensive, problem. Why are we so reluctant to look elsewhere for solutions?

When Dean Fortin was on CBC the other day there was a discussion about how a new bridge would provide better technology. In terms of opening and closing the thing I doubt that we can improve upon the efficiency of the current mechanism and counter-weights. If we try we will undoubtedly wind up with something with much greater operating costs. Some of the bridges in Amsterdam have even simpler mechanisms than the Johnson Street Bridge, and over there they know they won’t improve on them with anything that’s available today.

I have spent many years studying public transport systems in Europe, and I’ve met with transit authorities in France, Sweden, Germany and the UK. We have so much to learn from them and yet we seem so reluctant to do so. The ways in which all transportation systems are completely integrated (in one single department) for cities like Gothenburg and Stockholm for example – all planning, development and operations for highways, cyclists, pedestrians, control and crossings; all rail, bus, tram, small ferries and the rest of it – should make us ashamed of our own all-too-often inefficient and counter-productive efforts. But instead we’re still wedded to the automobile in the most unhealthy and unimaginative ways. It makes me despair sometimes. Particularly when one hears some of the uninformed comments we’ve been hearing on the subject of the Blue Bridge.

Last point. If his opinion would be worth anything, what do you think Michael Williams would have thought about this issue?

Sincerely,
Mike Elcock

Mike later responded with the following:

That’s fine Ross if you want to put it up on the website. I see the price
tag for the bridge was $40 million when I wrote the letter in April. Now
it’s $63 million – which rather confirms my point. It will be a lot more
than that by the time they’re finished.

FYI, Geoff Young replied to my letter and asked if he could pass it along to
his colleagues. I assume that they have therefore seen it.

He also mentioned the idea of crossing gates for cyclists & pedestrians (if
the railway bridge were to be used for those purposes) – hence my reference
to that.

In a reply to him I wrote the following – for what it’s worth:

I don’t think your colleagues on Council have thought this through at all.
If cost is the issue, then I’ll give anyone odds of ten to one that a new
bridge will cost substantially more than refurbishing the old one. And if it
isn’t cost, then what is it? I suppose it could be efficiency, but then, as
I say, we’re not using the asset that we’ve already got to its best
advantage.

If it’s environmental (removal of toxic paint etc.) then we should look at
the total footprint – carbon, other greenhouse gasses whatever – that is
involved in building a new bridge. It will be substantially greater than
fixing the old one. Plus, I know for a fact that the way they deal with the
Forth Bridge just to the north of Edinburgh is highly sensitive to
environmental issues. They use a kind of portable wrapping system, moving it
along as they end work on one part of the bridge and begin on another. The
Forth Bridge is a mile long and it takes them about a year to do the whole
thing – scraping/burning off old paint, and then applying new paint. When
they’ve finished they go back to the other end and start again. The salt
air, with the fogs they get in Scotland, is far more destructive than
anything we experience here. I would think our city engineers could at least
ask around to find out how they deal with these things elsewhere. I bet they
haven’t done that, and if so, that’s unforgivable. It’s pretty unforgivable
to me in the first place that they’ve just left the thing to rot for as long
as they have when they could have easily come up with a solution from some
other jurisdiction with a similar problem.

In terms of crossing gates, I suppose the liability lawyers jump all over
that sort of stuff. They don’t seem to have as many lawyers in Holland or
Sweden, where they believe less in gates and more on their citizens to look
left and right before they cross in front of trains. Especially at crossings
that only see two trains a day. And isn’t the speed limit for the Dayliner
on that bridge something like 5 kph? I know, I know, I should shut up. But
sometimes I wonder how the human race survived extinction without all these
legal people to keep us going.

Cheers,
Mike Elcock

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