641 replies to this topic

[aastra]

 

In a housing crisis would it make sense to introduce even more bureaucracy to the cost of housing?

 

Is that a quote from 1962?

[aastra]

I stand corrected. It's from 1967:

 

 

 

Daily Colonist
September 28, 1967

Houses Cost Enough Now With Pole-Lined Streets

The cost of underground wiring could push the already high cost of housing even higher, Victoria Mayor Hugh Stephen warned...

Commenting on a report issued Monday by the Victoria branch of the Community Planning Association of Canada, which suggested the removal of utility poles along Marine Drive, Mr. Stephen agreed that the scheme was esthetically good.
 

"If you insist upon underground wiring," said the mayor, "Then houses are going to cost more, because underground wiring costs more."

"We have a situation in Canada where it is difficult for people to afford to buy houses as it is."

 

...

Edited by aastra, 02 February 2020 - 01:47 PM.

[aastra]

 

...again with the friggin telephone poles! Would be nice to see a small fund put aside with a yearly budget to gradually remove them from downtown, even if it takes 20 years.

 

Did anybody bother to read the old news items about putting lines underground? Methinks Victorians who were reading those 1950s/1960s articles back in the day would have assumed the entire city would be done by now (heck, many years prior to now).

 

 

 

Daily Colonist
August 12, 1952 (!)

 

Planning for the Future

...Victoria certainly paved the way for some improvement along this line when it lifted its car tracks and did away with the cumbersome street-centre trolley wire cables.

To stop there and leave this grim forest of light and telephone poles, with their overhead squirrel cages of interlaced wires everywhere, is to fail in a worth while vision. It would be manifestly unfair and impracticable to expect public utilities to bury their distributing systems unaided. Provincial and municipal help would be required; the former possibly by way of a capital-city grant, and the city directly in its own interest.

If the costs could be split three ways, and the term over which replacement work was to be done extended over a reasonably long period, (aastra asks: would ~70 years be enough time? Not even close to enough, because we're still talking about this issue in 2020 as if it were some new thing.) much that appeared impossible initially might upon full and proper investigation be found well within the competence of this community. Planning for the future is the logical function of a town planning commission. (aastra says: Planning, yes. Action, no.)

Once more we invite attention to this existing opportunity. Victoria, with its miles of grass and clay boulevards, should be a much easier city to convert to buried conduits than others of similar size in Canada. In the long run the cost, great as it might be, would be more than fully returned.

 

Victoria is coming up on 160 years old. Victorians have been humming and hawing about overhead lines and taking piecemeal action now-and-then or here-and-there for about half of that time. It makes me wonder what "the long run" means. Do we even dare to count how many fine old homes and buildings that were being obscured by overhead lines in the 1950s are now long gone? In many places the lines have lasted longer than the buildings and streetscapes that they were diminishing. Victorians and their priorities...

Edited by aastra, 02 February 2020 - 02:31 PM.

[aastra]

 

Once more we invite attention to this existing opportunity...

 

Once more they're raising the nagging issue of overhead lines. In 1952.

 

Once more we're raising the nagging issue of overhead lines. In 2020.

[aastra]

 

...again with the friggin telephone poles! Would be nice to see a small fund put aside with a yearly budget to gradually remove them from downtown, even if it takes 20 years.

 

The good news is, the desirability of getting rid of them seems to be recognized, but (unfortunately) in a despairing sort of way.

 

 

 

Daily Colonist
April 4, 1952
 

Fences of unpainted poles and festoons of wires are hideous to look at, dangerous in storms and a hazard at all times to firemen. The desirability of getting rid of them seems to be recognized, but in a despairing sort of way, with nobody in authority displaying any inclination to make a start...

Underground Electric Wiring

[aastra]

 

Can't wait to see this project completed...super cool. Wish we had more variety like this in Victoria.

 

Meh. Looks exactly the same as The Falls, Black and White, Shoal Point, Yello on Yates, Capital Park, the Jukebox, Corazon, the Customs House, and the Hudson. Just another cookie-cutter development.

[Nparker]

If VV doesn't already have one, it seems like an underground wires thread might be valuable.

[G-Man]

It really should be done. I am sure if the city could focus on some local issues and perhaps quit trying to placate everyone in trying to build civic projects we could actually just afford to do this.

[aastra]

It was possible to do it for 30 blocks of downtown proper back in 1956-1962.

 

 

Daily Colonist
May 7, 1960

Underground Wiring

Street Ripping Will Be Over In a Few Days

Last of the major excavation of Victoria's downtown streets for underground wiring, started in 1956, will be over in a few days.

In about a month, the B.C. Electric will let a contract for the installing of wires in some of the 128 miles of four-inch ducts buried in a 30-block downtown area, and of transformers in 38 underground vaults.

This work will continue until next April, and then the final phase of the conversion to underground wiring, the removal of poles, will begin. By the middle of 1962, the last of the downtown power poles is scheduled to be taken down.

Edited by aastra, 02 February 2020 - 11:15 PM.

[Brantastic]

 

It looks like some of the corten panels are not so rusty, especially the smaller end pieces. Are these pieces that haven't yet rusted or has the rust somehow come off already? I hope this isn't a long-term issue with the building.

[Rob Randall]

Likely just hasn't oxidized yet. Once Corten rusts it's rusty for good. 

[Rob Randall]

The rust acts as a protective layer. The only long-term question is if our sea air climate acts more aggressively against the protective layer. It will be good for several decades.

[Mike K.]

I had not noticed it before, but Sidney's Aranza project features corten steel.

 

https://victoria.cit...als/the-aranza/

[MarkoJ]

March 15th, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nparker]

This project fits so seamlessly into the existing fabric of the neighbourhood that in 10 years time people will be calling it heritage.

[AllseeingEye]

Not liking those imitation power poles and lines though......blech.

[johnk2]

The Cor-ten cladding is imaginative. The rest of the building less so.

[MarkoJ]

The rest of the building less so.

 

Thank city council for that. Developer did the best he could given the idiots he has to deal with at City Hall.

[johnk2]

Thank city council for that. Developer did the best he could given the idiots he has to deal with at City Hall.

True dat. Overall I like LeFevre's projects, without him Old Town could be an architectural crime scene.

Edited by johnk2, 17 March 2020 - 03:30 PM.

[MarkoJ]