When will Ravine Way be completed?
Saanich and the province have been monkeying around on this 117-metre roadway since January.
Meanwhile, drivers exiting Uptown and heading north on the Pat Bay Highway are forced to either form a long queue and merge onto the Pat Bay Highway and loop back around on Saanich Road, or exit Uptown and shoot across three lanes of traffic and drive through the Save-On-Foods parking lot to merge onto northbound Pat Bay.
I have personally witnessed drivers nearly broadsided as they attempt to cross the Pat Bay.
Will Ravine Way ever open again?
What in the world is being done on this small-but-important piece of roadway that has required a half-year closure?
Lyle Jenish
Victoria
Consultation with individual users is a much less efficient use of time and resources than the Ferry Advisory Committees, which were unilaterally cancelled by B.C. Ferries.
The Ferry Advisory Committees had a superior ability to keep the Gabriola Island population informed, and to gather and organize the feedback, at no cost to B.C. Ferries. B.C. Ferries, in turn, did not have to sift through hundreds of individual responses in order to find patterns and priorities. The only conclusion one can come to is that B.C. Ferries either does not want consumer responses, but would rather have infrequent sham exercises that it can point to as legitimizing poorly thought-out plans and ulterior motives that have nothing to do with greater efficiency in delivery of services, or is oversensitive to legitimate critiques of its services. Neither is particularly a good reflection on the B.C. Ferries management.
Please reinstate Ferry Advisory Committees.
Laurence Lee
Vancouver and Gabriola Island
It seems that the fascination with artificial-intelligence data centres has captured the imagination of premiers in both British Columbia and Alberta, without much thought to the consequences.
In B.C., Bell AI Fabric last month announced plans to build six new AI data centres. Be careful what you wish for, Premier David Eby. It seems these centres are casting their eyes toward Canada because of the potential for energy generation.
Writer Andrew Nykiforuk, in his research on the subject, found the state of Texas to be a lesson in how not to do it. It is home to 350 data centres. Some of them use enough power to service a mid-size city.
The pressure on the electrical grid causes blackouts as the system becomes increasingly unreliable.
To meet the demand for electricity, which has been increasing exponentially due to the number of data centres, bitcoin mining and hydrogen production, the state will require the equivalent of 3o nuclear reactors, according to Nykiforuk’s research.
Predictably, Texas homeowners will be paying rising electrical bills to upgrade the infrastructure to meet the demand created by these power hogs.
Is this really what British Columbians voted for?
S.A. McBride, PhD
Cordova Bay
Re: “Let’s look out for each other downtown,” comment, June 18.
Thank you, Barbie Zipp, for sharing your story about an incident on a downtown sidewalk and the way a homeless man helped you.
It’s a “Good Samaritan” lesson we all need to absorb. Thanks, also, for including this chap’s name.
It’s important to remember, through all the complaints about “them” from different sectors, that “they” are people — with names and faces, and through some combination of circumstances any of us could face, have wound up in a very unfortunate situation.
Drew Snider
Sooke
Re: “Capital Region should build outdoor pools,” letter, June 18.
Want a 50-metre pool? Want an outdoor pool? Want a low-cost pool? Think outside the box.
Here’s what you do. Build a seawall across the mouth of the bay to enclose Finlayson Point Beach: plenty of parking already, natural salt water (it will warm up), tidal flushing whenever needed, close to other attractions in Beacon Hill Park, only half a kilometre to toilets.
Want something even cheaper and more central? Order the Capital Regional District to open up the Smith’s Hill Reservoir for swimmers.
Do both and there is time to build a fabulous new Crystal Recreation Centre.
Alanne Gibson
Victoria
• Email letters to:[email protected]
• Mail: Letters to the editor, Times Colonist, 201-655 Tyee Rd., Victoria, B.C. V9A 6X5
• Submissions should be no more than 250 words; subject to editing for length and clarity. Provide your contact information; it will not be published. Avoid sending your letter as an email attachment.