{"id":12253,"date":"2016-07-26T12:22:46","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T19:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=12253"},"modified":"2016-07-27T12:05:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-27T19:05:15","slug":"open-space-puzzle-piece-crosswalks-incredible-waste-of-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/07\/26\/open-space-puzzle-piece-crosswalks-incredible-waste-of-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Puzzle-piece crosswalks incredible waste of money"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA) should learn what we all know: money doesn\u2019t grow on trees.<\/p>\n

The fluorescent puzzle-piece crosswalks that the DVBA has paid for are utterly ridiculous. The city would be better off letting the many deer that inhabit Victoria roll in a heap of cold hard cash.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One of Victoria’s colourful new crosswalks (photo by Adam Marsh\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m not talking about the rainbow crosswalks that were installed a few years back; that\u2019s a different, and a much more culturally and emotionally relevant matter. (I happen to think those crosswalks are badass. Any time kids hang themselves in their closets because they\u2019re getting bullied at school for being gay, a serious reality check is in order.) But this wasn\u2019t to raise any awareness other than how much Victoria loves its tourist industry. While that is a really important part of the economy for the city, and, yes, the colouring does add a little bit to Victoria\u2019s unique small-but-big-city vibe, there are far more important issues this city has to deal with that, whether intentionally or not, get drilled further into the ground when little side projects like this emerge to distract the public from what really matters.<\/p>\n

There are Victorians who have to pick between groceries and paying rent. Others can\u2019t afford one of the two, let alone both. The sidewalk art is a (colourful) middle finger to those struggling, and is another external distraction to get our minds off the smell of sewage floating downtown, the needles we step over while trying to walk around, and the city\u2019s huge homeless problem.<\/p>\n

In a perfect world, organizations like the DVBA would have a responsibility to make sure the money they\u2019re conjuring up for projects like this\u2014the crosswalk painting was paid for from a sum of $180,000 that went towards this and other projects\u2014instead goes toward things that are actually going to help the city\u2019s core by addressing issues that effect the well being, health, and safety of the citizens.<\/p>\n

Making the city appear more colourful and together than it actually is will do nothing for the tourism industry in the long run. Vacationers will go back home and spread the truth that pictures rarely convey: that this city can only apply so much make-up to hide its zits before tears and bruises start to make the mascara run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA) should learn what we all know: money doesn\u2019t grow on trees. The fluorescent puzzle-piece crosswalks that the DVBA has paid for are utterly ridiculous. The city would be better off letting the many deer that inhabit Victoria roll in a heap of cold hard cash. I\u2019m not talking about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-views"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12253"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12262,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12253\/revisions\/12262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}