Recycling Election Propaganda

I dug out  material that was posted in 2005, and some even earlier than that,  to see how the great promises held up. You can see the unedited postings by going to:

http://www.checkmateconsulting.com/ffc/

The painful and obvious truth is that many of the same issues are highlighted with only the timelines changed. This indicates several possible things- unrealistic expectations, acts of God or other interveners, politicians saying anything.

Probably all of the above. Things take a long time (and work expands laterally to take up all available time), there WERE some glitches- including major senior staff turnovers, and it is true that most political aspirants want to suggest they'll do far more than is reasonably possible.

Case in point- Snug Cove. We've been tossing planning ideas for decades, the Village Plan was finished in 2005, yet another Master Plan done in 2007, yet on the ground nothing much has changed except some south side sidewalk work. We've said as a Council that we ought to start with  the ferry apron to Cardena section, but BC Ferries, who said they'd get back to us in August, have only said that a dropoff in that area is unpractical. We asked our highways guys to widen the corner at Cardena for a better turnaround, but they haven't done it- possibly because Public Works wants to see how it fits into the bigger picture (and to their defence, they've been really busy with other projects, including road repaving, as we have all seen). Meanwhile anything to do with major traffic works hinges on acquisition of GVRD land, and we haven't even begun to nail down exactly what we want.

Hard to pin specific blame, if due,  except that ultimately these are political decisions, and collectively it is Council's responsibility to decide, give direction to act, and ensure that what has been decided is done.

I've touted a simple, inelegant ferry marshaling/parking plan for quite a while now, and will push to see it, or something similar adopted. That is, to use the existing traveling surface of Gov't Rd, but get rid of south side parallel parking, replacing it with angled parking on the north side. Not ideal, but inexpensive (you can go around the hydro poles), requires a strip less than 20 feet of GVRD park land, and it provides better parking plus allows for 2 lane marshaling. And it minimizes incursion into the active heronry area. Even if a narrow median  was added to the road, only another 2 metres would be needed. We could argue, or wait, or just get on with it.

Other examples to follow...