Boomin in Victoria

The City of Victoria is soliciting input on the 2025 Draft Budget until Sunday, November 17. For what it's worth, here's the input I sent in. Dear Mayor and Council, Here are my comments on the 2025 Draft Budget. They are based on reading the Draft Budget Summary , the Draft Budget , and the Council Orientation presentation from the October 24 COTW meeting . My comments are structured as a set of observations, followed by a list of what I would recommend as city priorities, and some comments on specific projects. I would like to start, however, by expressing my appreciation for the way in which the budget is set out. I’ve lived in a number of cities over the years, and Victoria’s engagement materials are consistently among the clearest and most accessible that I have seen. That said, there are two areas that I think could be clearer: The Council Orientation presentation did a good job of explaining why capital budget costs are increasing (including the built-in 3% annual incr...

[Back in April, my wife, Irene, wrote this piece about Victoria's Official Community Plan (OCP) update . I thought it was insightful and wise, and she's graciously given me permission to post it here.] I’ve recently seen a number of people complain that the OCP engagement process is “biased”. But I think that people are confusing biases with constraints. When you go shopping for new appliances, and find out that all models with the features you need cost more than you wanted to pay, do you accuse the store of being biased? Or do you recognize that you are dealing with constraints? This OCP update is responding to a lot of constraints.  The most obvious constraint is new targets for increasing and diversifying our supply of housing.  The province has ordered Victoria to: Add 4,902 additional homes in the next 4 years; Permit at least 3-4 units on most residential lots, and up to 6 units on some, by June; Complete a standardized 20-year Housing Needs Analysis, and update ou...

Note On Thursday, May 16, Victoria's City Council will receive a Douglas Street Downtown Dedicated Bus Lane Update. For the central downtown section the report briefly presents options "A" through "F". Option "F" is recommended, and the report gives some additional detail. Personally, I think Thursday's decision is extremely important, and I put the following together in an attempt to organize my thoughts about report and the choices is presents. Unlike my other posts so far, I haven't even made an effort to be funny! This is pure geek. Consider yourself warned. Executive Summary There is a lot to like about the staff recommended Option F, Offset Dedicated Bus Lanes , and it may well be the best option, but the report does not provide enough information about the other options for Council to make an informed decision about which approaches best embody the city’s priorities. More detail is required, at least for options ...

On March 15, the Times Colonist published a piece in their Home>Life  section by one of their regular columnists, John Ducker. The name of the article is John Ducker: E-scooters are convenient and green. But… Background The article was prompted by the City of Victoria's recent decision to participate in B.C.'s electric-scooter pilot program, and it raises some interesting questions about safety. The safety of e-scooters is complicated, as it involves issues like whether protected bike and roll lanes are available, and whether the area has dockless e-scooter rentals (which can definitely be problematic ). As far as I can tell, almost all of the literature on the safety and effect of legalizing e-scooters is about dockless rental programs, like Bird and Lime , but that's not what's being discussed in Victoria. Victoria's participation in the pilot is about allowing people to ride their own e-sc...

  Arbutus Way on Google Street View There’s a member motion from Councillor Marg Gardiner up for the Thursday, April 6 Victoria Committee of the Whole about returning cars to Arbutus Way in Beacon Hill Park. Arbutus Way and Chestnut Row were made car free areas during the early pandemic years. The justification for returning cars is to make it easier for people with mobility concerns to access Goodacre Lake. I think it's short sighted. Although any discussion of mobility is inherently political right now, I wasn't planning to use this blog to talk about specific motions or proposals. But this issue is personal. I started out composing a thread for Twitter and Mastodon, but it kept getting longer, so perhaps this blog is a better format. By the way, the motion uses the term mobility concerns, so that's the phrasing I'll use here. The full text of the motion is: BACKGROUND During the pandemic, the closure of Beacon Hill Park for vehicular access to Arbutus Way at Sou...