The weakest point in this whole debate is the one that goes "you weren't defending it before it was threatened, so therefore it must not be valuable". It's an incredibly bogus argument because:
1) people take things for granted, like the famous bridge that (in the city's words) would "always be there", or historic buildings at the Jubilee Hospital,
or the Coho, or fine old trees in the park right in your own neighbourhood (or the Campbell Building, or the Permanent Loan Building, etc. etc. etc.)
2) nobody was going on about how the bridge was a notorious wreck and an esthetic eyesore that should be dismantled immediately EITHER. I can show you countless pictures of the bridge taken by residents and tourists, I can show you products named after it, I can show you blurbs in tourism guides and books. So how come a sudden decision to trash something is perfectly valid and requires no context whatsoever whereas there's this impossible burden of proof put upon the folks who want to protect it?
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I do not recall anyone, anytime saying the blue bridge is an attraction before this whole controversy started.
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This is incorrect and has been demonstrated as such many times on this very thread. Just because you don't recall it doesn't mean it never happened.
Some people seem to want to reduce this issue to liking/disliking the bridge. Folks, history (the non-Wikipedia variety) doesn't come down to a popular vote. The bridge is what it is. The equivalent bridge is a prized piece of history in San Francisco, Toronto, Ohio, Tennessee, Connecticut, etc. Nobody has yet offered any explanation as to why it's not a prized piece of history in Victoria. Are we suggesting that we know more than those saps in those other places? Or are we merely ignorant and unwilling to admit it?
Heritage preservation in Victoria has been politically compromised beyond all recognition. Most of us were well aware of that fact many years before this bridge issue came up. The bridge issue is just the most extreme example that we've encountered so far.
People who are rooting for replacing the bridge because they think it serves as some sort of challenge to the stuck-in-the-mud crowd should make note of the fact that the stuck-in-the-mud crowd is BEHIND this. It's
their project. The folks who oppose everything and who made everything so darned difficult during the little 21st-century building boom that we've just enjoyed are the very same folks who want to ditch the bridge.
So you aren't challenging them by rooting for the bridge's demise. You're arm in arm with them. Will you be arm in arm with them when they scream about a midrise condo proposal on a parking lot? Or when they flip about modifications to the interior of the Rogers' Chocolates store? Or when they oppose a downtown art gallery or performing arts centre?
Also, the turn on the Vic West side is a lazy turn by any standard. Can we please drop that lemon? Crikey, on the one hand we're claiming we're progressive hipsters boldly rolling forward over our collective past, and on the other hand we're fretting because our unsteady hands can't negotiate any road that isn't absolutely straight?