Re: Growlers heard rumbling in skies over Saanich (Aug. 18). Saanich Coun. Fred Haynes is concerned about the noise from the U.S. air base on Whitby Island. “The noise scape of Saanich is important to us all.” Indeed it is. But Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen notes pragmatically, that the problem is beyond the jurisdiction of local politicians.
Perhaps Coun. Haynes’ time and energy would be more profitably spent working on the constant noise problem in rural Saanich, which is far more aggravating than the occasional, and not that troublesome, Growler noise.
Locally, rural Saanich is plagued with speeding commuter traffic, illegal overweight commercial trucks, and all the accompanying noise and pollution. Rural Saanich pedestrians cannot walk down their own residential streets safely.
It is not that he, or other members of Saanich council, are unaware of the problem. Local residents of rural Saanich have been begging Saanich council and engineering staff for the last 10 years to implement some form of traffic calming. We have petitioned them three times, with 95 per cent resident approval, and there have been letters, emails and phone calls too numerous to mention.
It would be nice if Saanich council tackled a local problem, with local consequences, that they have full jurisdictional authority to fix. Instead, it appears that expressing concern over something they have absolutely no power to change makes for better headlines. Local pedestrian safety is just not sexy enough. To borrow a phrase from Donald Trump: “So sad!”
Bob Etheridge
Saanich
