North on 19: Traffic and the Savage Sky

Reading is for suckers.  Click the video below to have the article read to you in my dulcet tones:

This weekend my wife and I drove up island to Campbell River to visit my mother.  We used to visit once every few months but since my stepfather’s passing in March we've made the trip - some 260km - more frequently.

We had planned to leave Friday afternoon at 2, which we thought would allow us to beat the inevitable after-work traffic jam that clogs up the westbound road out of Victoria and in no way indicates a need for commuter rail.  As it turned out, we were almost right – we had made it as far as the beginning of the Malahat highway, where traffic bottlenecks on a good day, to discover a construction crew busily increasing to three the number of lanes which have to frantically merge into one thirty feet later.  Traffic slowed to a standstill and we had plenty of time to reflect on how peaceful our up-island trips used to be when Via Rail was still running.

In my more optimistic moments I imagine a day when some kind of light rail service gives commuters in the GVRD a way to work that doesn’t involve sweltering on asphalt while a chopped Harley Davidson four feet away plays you the song of its people but such a utopia is unlikely.

Victoria would like to be thought of as a forward-thinking city and with all the tattooed yogis wandering around you’d almost fall for it – until, that is, someone makes a suggestion towards improving infrastructure in any meaningful way.  

In Pictures: Sprawlapalooza, or That Time I Agreed With the Man in the Hemp Trousers

Reading is for suckers.  Click the video below to have the article read to you in my dulcet tones:

What is it that makes Victoria so special?  It could be any number of things I suppose: a mild climate, clean streets, or the Mr. Magoo-like way city hall overlooks the thriving sex and drug trades while fussing over how new downtown liquor licenses will affect public morality.  Perhaps it’s the way so many talented people nod knowingly when the discussion turns to the job market and how it’s harder to get into than Doris Day’s business back when the getting was good.  Or the heartstring-tugging way they wave goodbye, like kids on the way to a weekend at their mother’s, when’ve run out of money and steam and they light out for points east, taking all their enthusiasm and creativity with them.