819 replies to this topic

[LJ]

 

 

But it's the same old cost/benefit story. Who cares if it can go twice as fast as a ferry? It's something to ponder as you fly overhead in a Dash-8 at 400 mph.

I don't want to be flying in your Dash-8.

[Victoria Watcher]

the big dash 8 goes over 400 mph.

[Rob Randall]

My point is there's basically only two ways of getting people over the water. Pack them all cheaply into a big steel tub and slowly steam your way across or put a few in an expensive 400 mph aluminum tube. Any attempt at combining the two technologies just gets you the worst of both worlds. 

[Sparky]

^ Fast Cat Ferries come to mind. They said it couldn’t be done... and they were right.

[Mike K.]

Now the same crew are handling our housing industry.

[LJ]

the big dash 8 goes over 400 mph.

Not quite.

 

https://prijet.com/p...ier dash 8-q400

[Rob Randall]

OK, so not quite 400 mph, especially on the Victoria/Vancouver run but my point is, uh, I forgot my point but my point stands whatever it was.

[Sparky]

^ That was funny.

[RPPB]

The Q400 actually cruises at 414mph, Rob is correct. But the hovercraft eliminates the need for a shuttle bus at either end...

Attached Images

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[LJ]

Maximum cruise is the speed the aircraft can fly at its optimal altitude where the air is thinner. Average cruise is calculated by taking an average trip length and takes into account the climb, speed limit, cruise and descent speeds. Long range cruise is the speed required to attain the maximum range.

Maximum Cruise: 393 mph
Average Cruise: 393 mph
Long Range Cruise: 365 mph

[Victoria Watcher]

it looks like that hovercraft could eliminate the need for the gondola at Royal bay. And could pull right up onto the legislature lawn at this end. that would be a more impressive display than the harbour ferry ballet.

[aastra]

Some items repeated from the Harris Green Village thread:

 

*****

 

Here's yet another amazing old news item that conclusively demonstrates how "the more Victoria changes, the more it stays the same":

 

 

Daily Colonist
February 22, 1950

Suggestions on Welfare Centre Site Welcomed by Spencer Foundation

The Spencer Foundation is "definitely open" to suggestions as to an alternative site for its proposed $100,000 welfare centre...

For a week, City Council has been bombarded with protests against its decision to let the Foundation build the centre on Pandora Green.

...the green is not city property, and it was beyond the council's power to allow construction on the green.

SEEK ALTERNATE SITE

Citizens, and EVEN AN OAK BAY RESIDENT (aastra says: Wow! EVEN an Oak Bay resident!), have protested council's action on the grounds that THE GREEN SHOULD BE PRESERVED AS ONE OF THE FEW OPEN SPACES IN THE CITY CENTRE.

But apparently the green is Crown property, and owes its existence to a town-planner's mistake.

The first plan of Victoria -- drawn in 1859 by H.O. Tiedemann -- shows the green as simply a triangular strip of land in the centre of Pandora Avenue.

...some sections of the city had earlier been subdivided into lots. Then a 100-acre section of land north of Johnson Street, on what was then the outskirts of town, was subdivided into five-acre "suburban" lots.

When the early planners fitted the suburban 100-acre section into an overall map of the town, they found the sections didn't join evenly.

Narrow triangles of land were left on what is now Arena Way and between Johnson and Pandora.

Legally, the land was part of the streets... and as such was Crown property.

(Section 346 of the Municipal Act declares the Crown owns all streets in any municipality which, like Victoria, does not have a private act.)

For a long time, no improvements were made to the Pandora triangle. It was once used as a dump for old drain pipes... Shortly before the Great War, it was sown to grass and later became known as Harris Green, after Thomas Harris, first mayor of Victoria.

The land is still Crown-owned... and cannot be transferred to the city without approval of the lieutenant-governor-in-council.

City Hall sources indicated there was little likelihood the Provincial Government would consent to building of a welfare centre on Pandora Green.

Mr. Barraclough said last night the Spencer Foundation is "waiting for the critics to bring forward suggestions."

He said the site "should be IN A PROMINENT PLACE (aastra says: political priorities should always be top priorities) TO REMIND CITIZENS OF THEIR DUTY TO THE COMMUNITY, should be close enough downtown to be used, and SHOULD BE IN THE CENTRE OF THE POPULATION TO MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO THE GREATEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE."

 

So... in the year 2022 would it still make sense to place such services in the centre of the population? You know, to make the services available to the greatest number of people? Maybe around Uptown or in View Royal or someplace like that?

 

(crickets chirping)

 

*****

 

 

Daily Colonist
October 26, 1979

Harris Green blueprint before council

"Urban recycling" of 12 blocks bounded by Pandora, Cook, Fort and Blanshard is recommended in a study approved by Victoria city council...

"This concept for a new neighborhood rising on the eastern edge of downtown could have an important impact for the quality of the city's environment in the next quarter century," according to the study.

The new community, Harris Green, of more than 6,000 apartments and condominiums, would provide a "new pedestrian oriented lifestyle option."

Landscaped walkways would allow residents to reach downtown jobs, shopping and other facilities including the "hub of the transit network" on foot.

Objective of Harris Green would be to establish a high-density resident population along with complementary land uses within an attractive and viable environment.

Development would include a mix of public and private sector housing that would take care of a broad mix of income groups in order to avoid ghetto environments. (aastra says: until the future day when politicians decide the effort to include a broad mix has been too successful, thus motivating them to tip the scales back toward the "ghetto" end of the spectrum.)

There should be enough open space to meet leisure needs, while traditional landmarks and heritage buildings should be preserved (aastra says: the old Open Door building and the St. Louis/St. Andrew's school building on Pandora, for example)

Redevelopment of the area, the report said, WOULD REVITALIZE THE DOWNTOWN COMMERCIAL AREA (aastra says: until the future day when politicians decide to make open war against the downtown commercial area), and would also relieve redevelopment pressures on neighborhood conservation areas like Fairfield and James Bay. (aastra says: until the future day when politicians embrace the idea of "the missing middle" and thus begin stoking redevelopment pressures on the neighborhoods like never before)

 

*****

 

 

Daily Colonist
September 24, 1972

PANDORA'S GREEN
...mistakes that became a blessing

by Jean Estes

Victoria's first official map, completed in 1858 by Joseph Despard Pemberton, the colonial surveyor, did show a three-block-long gore in Pandora's street allowance -- starting at Quadra and ending at Chambers where the survey terminated at that time. But there's no recorded explanation of the triangle's origin, so perhaps it was the result of a surveyor's boo-boo. Anyway, here's the story of its development into three lovely, connecting greens.

As early as 1871 the city council discussed planting shade trees along Pandora, but owing to lack of funds many years elapsed before any improvements were made.

...presumably city council was hopeful of beautification of the Pandora gore, and in March, 1901 the city engineer and city assessor presented a plan for turning the proposed Pandora park area into flower beds. However, that scheme met with considerable opposition from taxpayers and the plan was tabled.

No progress was made until 1909, when concerned property owners banded together and petitioned the civic authorities to "establish a park, particularly where the roadway broadened between Cook and Chambers streets."

...Alderman Bannerman gave notice he would move at the next city council meeting "that the city engineer be instructed to prepare a plan for laying out the eastern portion of Pandora Avenue from Vancouver Street easterly as a recreation park..."

...a plan was submitted which called for "a walk down the centre with shade trees and flower beds for the lower section. The wider part of the gore -- between Chambers and Cook -- would have curving sidewalks throughout the area, shade trees, flower beds, grass and shrubbery."

"At the upper end would be a fountain where there is considerable rock and the water which would find its way down the incline to a pond about 50 feet in diameter situation midway between Cook and Chambers."

Evidently that plan was too costly as a modified one was adopted, and only the upper section laid out in 1910. Holly trees were planted along the Chambers Street edge, two rows of shade trees put in and grass seeded.

A word here about those leaf trees. They're sycamore maple or plane trees, as many people know them, and American beech. Although neither are native to this area they have withstood well Victoria's frequent high winds.

For many years the parks enjoyed a quiet, uneventful existence. And then in 1950 Harris Green, as the upper section was then unofficially known, hit the news -- when the Chris Spencer Foundation applied to the city to purchase part of the land, for construction of a $100,000 welfare house.

For weeks a storm of public protest raged. Dedication of Harris Green as a permanent park was requested of the city by First Church of Christ, Scientist, 1205 Pandora Avenue, but while searching for a title to the property the city discovered that none existed. The three connecting greens are part of what was originally surveyed for street use and as such are not saleable.

On Sept. 25, 1959 the name of the top green became official...

During the early 1960s an outcropping of rock halfway up Harris Green was landscaped with low, spreading evergreen shrubs -- and sturdy, modernistic benches were placed in all three parks.

The benches provide a place to relax out-of-doors for a variety of people -- retired residents of surrounding apartments, patients awaiting appointments at the nearby Medical Arts centre, grocery-laden customers of Wellburn's super mart, and backpacking, youthful travelers.

In 1969 two beds of bright, orange-red firefly roses were put in near the top of Pandora's smallest connecting green -- the wedge-shaped one between Quadra and Vancouver. In 1970 a third bed was added and filled with velvety, deep-red Palm Springs roses, a gift from our sister city, Palm Springs, California.

These small parks are a constant delight to those of us who enjoy their beauty daily. A neighbor who was moving from our district recently remarked: "When my wife and I decided to buy a condominium, it took two years to find one that has as pleasant an outlook as our apartment facing Harris Green.

And now that the main artery of Pandora is being prepared for one-way traffic, further changes to the greens have become necessary. But thanks to careful planning, not a tree has been sacrificed nor a rose bed removed, and so Pandora's beautification will continue to be a blessing to this area of near-downtown Victoria.

Edited by aastra, 06 May 2022 - 05:20 PM.

[aastra]

Just repeating this from another thread. Victoria is constantly changing but also never changing. Victoria is constantly on the brink of ruin but also never quite falling over the edge.

 

 

Times-Colonist
October 15, 2022

Restrictions needed for developments

I happened to go downtown the other day, something I try not to do if at all possible. What I saw made me sick. Building after huge building, cranes everywhere. Construction on every corner. It is starting to look like Vancouver.

...none of us want these drastic changes to come to our little city.

[aastra]

Copied from another thread:

 

 

Daily Colonist
February 5, 1937

Letter to the Editor:
Hudson's Bay Warehouse

...article in the magazine section of last Sunday's Colonist... calls attention to the astonishing fact that one of Victoria's few "historical" buildings is about to be destroyed. The Hudson's Bay warehouse on Wharf Street, on account of its associations with the past, should be well worth preserving for posterity, surely, even if it is not the sturdy structure it (once) was.

There are plenty of decrepit old buildings in the city due for the "housebreaker's" kind attention -- places that are eyesores and menaces to the community -- which are allowed to stay unmolested. Why not start on some of these?

But demolition work on the Hudson's Bay warehouse is already under way...

It is an interesting building, both historically and structurally: the exterior plain, as befits a warehouse, though in this case the very wide overhanging eaves give a special distinction. The floors are carried by massive wooden posts and beams that bear the mark of the axe which hewed them some eighty-odd years ago. They are good for centuries of wear and tear, I should say.

There is a lot of floor space that could be well utilized: it is easy to visualize this as a museum devoted especially to Vancouver Island's history, or headquarters for the display of local handicrafts, etc. The lowest floor (two stories beneath the road) has the appearance of a crypt under an ancient church, its whitewashed wooden posts so massive here as to give the impression of stone pillars. This was the wine cellarage, and old labels relating to certain brands of "fine old port" can be found still sticking to the walls.

A year or two ago when the Tourist Trade Development idea originated here, a suggestion was made that it might prove a special attraction if reproductions of old Chester houses and shops were erected. The preservation of GENUINE local "ancient" buildings, if of historical interest, would seem to be a more appropriate object.

- P. Leonard James, Todd Road, Victoria

 

--

 

 

Daily Colonist
July 22, 1980

Bastion Square attractive centre link

It is quite obvious that very few tourists and others walk along this part of Wharf Street for the view. More people use Bastion Square, although not in large numbers.

Is not the answer to provide an unique attraction to encourage more people to use this area and at the same time afford a pleasing and attractive entrance to the centre?

Build a well designed wide overpass from Bastion Square to the roof of the centre. The roof to have attractive plantings of trees and shrubs with restful benches. There should also be an attractive entrance to the centre on the roof. From the roof would be a ramp on a gradual slope extending toward the Marine building alongside of the existing sidewalk.

What benefits would derive from this concept?

-An elevated view of the entire harbor, with the Olympics and Sooke hills as a background.

-The main objection to obstructing the view from Bastion Square would be eliminated.

- D.E. Smith, Dewdney Avenue, Victoria

Edited by aastra, 22 November 2022 - 11:42 AM.

[amor de cosmos]

^

Percy Leonard James was one of Victoria, British Columbia’s preeminent architects through the early decades of the twentieth century. This well-researched biography, written by his daughter, chronicles James’ personal and professional life from his early days in England to his becoming one of Victoria’s most influential designers. As James’ work is often overshadowed by his contemporary architects, Samuel Maclure and Francis Mawson Rattenbury, this book is long overdue and, in some instances, sets the record straight.
 
Winner of the 2005 Mark Maddoff Award from the Hallmark Society

https://www.granvill...-leonard-james/

[aastra]

Predictable issues re: the Johnson Street parkade:

 

 

Daily Colonist
August 19, 1970

Johnson Parkade Weathers Attack

In spite of sharp criticism levelled Tuesday by downtown merchants and Victoria Ald. Peter Pollen against the design of the proposed Johnson Street parking structure, the city's public works committee recommended to council that the scheme be adopted.

If approved by council the new parking facility will be built on the north side of Johnson between Blanshard and Douglas. It will provide 400 parking spaces.

Estimated to cost approximately $750,000, the building will be financed under a local improvement scheme.

...Pollen said the design was esthetically not as acceptable as it could be.

Jack Lacterman, past president of the 700-block Yates Street Association, told the committee he was very disappointed with the design.

He objected to the "unimaginative front" of the proposed parking facility...

Plans call for the location of six stores in the building, but to allow smooth flow of parking traffic, the stores would have a depth of only 15 feet...

Lacterman said this wasn't enough. No store could be economically operated it it was only 15 feet deep.

R.W. Siddall of Siddall, Dennis and Warner, a Victoria firm of architects which prepared the drawings, said the structure was functional which was the most important thing.

Ald. Hugh Ramsay said, "If we keep hashing this thing over, we'll never get anything done. There are 27 people here, and there are 27 different opinions..."

Following construction of the Johnson Street structure, an additional 150 spaces will be provided in the existing View Street parkade and more parking spaces in the Yates Street building will be constructed next year.

Although the money for the projects will be borrowed by the city, the venture is underwritten by the property owners of the area who approved a $1.5 million expenditure...

A special five-mill levy will be imposed on participating property owners to pay the debt charges and annual operating expenses.

The two existing parking buildings on View and Yates were built and financed under the same scheme and are self-supporting in the meantime. Revenue from the garages is enough to pay the annual debt charges and operating costs.

[aastra]

Please be careful in the future:

 

 

Daily Colonist
March 4, 1975

Futurists predict car free cores

Free public transportation, in 20 years

(Los Angeles Time News Service) By 1983 cars will be banned from the central cores of most large cities.

In 20 years commuters, at least, may not have to worry about cars at all. By then they will have their choice of free public transportation -- buses or rapid transit systems -- in California's major cities.

In 25 years air pollution will be less than half the problem it is now.

These are some of the trends a group of experts has forecast in transportation and for other phases of society for the remainder of the 20th century and into the first few years of the 21st century.

...about 50 percent more people will be using public transportation by 1995, but fewer people will be commuting to work by then. Electronic communication, allowing people to work and shop at home, will replace about one of four of the trips people make today.

By the early 1980s... intercity rail passenger service will improve on a par with European levels.

Car ownership, on a per family basis, will drop slightly by the mid-1990s. But at the same time, people will be using more lease-by-the-hour personal-type vehicles.

People will also be taking longer trips on business and for weekend outings and vacations.

...while there will be more than three times as many people using public transportation in California's cities by 1995, there will also be more people walking and bicycling to work.

...there will be a 40 per cent increase in bicycle use by 1995 and a doubling of the walk-to-work and bicycle-to-work forces between 1985 and 1995.

...fewer trucks will be on the highways, with a corresponding increase in the railroads carrying long-haul goods.

...the futurists tried to measure changing attitudes toward the quality of life in California. They agree that fewer people will be satisfied with what the state has to offer by 1995, and disenchantment will grow even more by the year 2005.

...there will be an increase in the percentage of people who are of working age but who work less than full time.

[Victoria Watcher]

Some nuggets in there. Some real duds.

[aastra]

Either very right or very wrong.

[Victoria Watcher]

Electronic communication. Correct.

Less trucks more rail. Wrong.

Shop at home. Correct.

Free transit and intercity rail. Wrong.

Car ownership wrong. Lease-by-hour transport might be partially correct if we say Uber is that.

Walk and bike to work wrong.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 November 2022 - 11:52 AM.