Re: “Historic E&N Roundhouse on the way to a shopping-centre makeover,” Jan. 29.
The E&N Roundhouse is another heritage building for butchering. In Europe, heritage buildings were rebuilt as they were before the devastation of war. In Victoria, heritage buildings are gutted or overshadowed by new construction or only the front wall is kept. Like antiquities stolen by grave robbers, most of the historic value is gone. Tourists come to see real historical areas, not illusion.
In the city, if heritage buildings are inconvenient or interfere with profit, they are gone.
The Roundhouse can be used again as a rail-service facility when city leaders finally follow all the U.S. cities and states — San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, California, Salt Lake City, Utah, New Mexico, Denver, Portland and many eastern states and cities — where rail transportation, integrated with bus transit, is hugely popular and brings renewal.
Light-rail trains can operate on the E&N tracks and right across the Johnson Street Bridge replacement. If it can carry highway trucks, it can carry light rail tracks and equipment. The city needs a streetcar service connecting the dockyard and the University of Victoria via downtown, Royal Jubilee Hospital and Camosun College. The capital cost is high but the return on investment is huge. Higher density and land values grow alongside the tracks. A dying downtown will be renewed, a great return on the investment.
Keep the roundhouse for trains and transportation and move into the 21st century.
Bob Trotter
Victoria
