You could call it a rant but I prefer to call it a selection of things that I can’t quite get my head around this week, or maybe just stuff I fail to understand this week (or at least a sampling of all the things I can’t understand as space and attention span are always at play here….)
…..driving my kids to school Thursday, which I know I shouldn’t do and usually don’t but one had late hockey Wednesday night soooo, I ran, well slowly crept up to is more accurate, into a construction crew at the light at Fulton Road and Okanagan Landing Road, which backed up traffic for miles, as opposed to the mere kilometres on a normal day thanks to the proximity of Ellison and Fulton schools with similar start times and virtually a single-road access.
So throw poor urban planning, an ill-timed but maybe necessary (who knows, they never tell us) construction zone and the usual two-schools’ worth of traffic and virtually nobody was getting to school, and or work, on time Thursday. Luckily on Friday, as I was beginning to head to work, without kids, the radio alerted me, thanks to a listener, that 25th Avenue (or OKL Road, it changes somewhere in there) was again a gong show and that drivers are best to avoid it. So I headed back and took Bella Vista Road, which they were just beginning to pave and was down to one-lane traffic but luckily I made it through fairly quickly.
I, of course, couldn’t take Allenby Way, which would have been quicker, because they’ve been working on that for months now and passing glances makes me think they’ve put it on one of those infamous city diets anyway as it looks like a one-lane thoroughfare now…….arrrrggggghhhhhh…….
……and speaking of construction, sometimes it seems like the whole city is being rebuilt at the same time. Of course one only thinks that way if it affects one personally, see previous paragraph, and I know, I know, it’s all good once it’s completed (well, the jury’s still out on 20th and 29th Streets, although they look good – maybe not practical though and if I lived there or had a business there?).
The work on two blocks of 31st Avenue is seemingly taking forever too, although it’s not a major thoroughfare, it’s certainly annoying. And to come clean (and to avoid any perceived conflict of interest) my wife’s business happens to be in those two blocks, see paragraph above on personally involved, so it’s much more than a little annoying to those directly affected.
But, hey, hopefully all these projects will be finished before the snow flies, which, I assume is the goal and the reason for the flurry of activity, and hopefully we can pay for it all and will benefit from it in the end (although hats off to the 43rd Avenue businesses who fought city hall and will likely win, enough with the politically-correct, grant-seeking projects that make no practical sense)…..
……but enough about driving, besides we’re all supposed to be riding our bikes everywhere anyway, right, which makes me think that all of this road construction is a plot to get us so frustrated that we abandon our cars and get out our bikes and, hey, I’m close, believe me….
…..one more rant about unnecessary delays though. It just amazes me that Vancouver police are just now showing up at media outlets to gather video footage from the Stanley Cup riots on June 15 in order to lay charges that are expected, but who knows really, in late October.
I know the night was chaotic but to take three months to get to this stage shows there’s something seriously wrong with how our justice system operates. Funding is part of it but it’s also systemic and it needs a serious overhaul that includes looking at the process that leads to charges (in B.C. it’s police to crown to…..) and then the constant delays and frustration that ensue once charges are actually laid (which we still have to look forward to).
Rioters in Britain, an event that took place much later than ‘our’ riot, will be getting out of jail after serving their terms before one single Stanley Cup looter will even be charged.
It’s just jolly well not right.
—Glenn Mitchell is the managing editor for The Morning Star
