Re: “Victoria mayor throws down the Heidelberg Challenge,” comment, June 1.
Once again, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps is going on about the wonderful world we can have by giving up the automobile. This time, she used the German town of Heidelberg (population about 160,000) as more proof that her grand design for humanity depends on the bicycle.
Heidelberg is a quaint medieval town where there isn’t room to do much more than ride a bicycle.
When I saw the place, it seemed to me that most residents lived close to the town centre which makes cycling and walking more of a positive option to driving.
I have driven through London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and Lisbon but at no time did it appear that Europeans are ready to swap the automobile for the bicycle.
What I noticed is many Europeans, if they can’t afford an auto, choose lightweight motorcycles or mopeds as next best before bicycles.
I am at a loss as to where she came up with numbers of trips people make on foot or by bike. Presumably she means downtown Victoria residents only when presenting those figures. Residents of Oak Bay, Saanich and Esquimalt will be using autos well into the future for managing their trips, especially now that electric are replacing internal combustion types.
Finally, those cute, or frustrating, narrow streets in many European towns result from accommodating horse-drawn carriages (dare I mention such a thing) in the earliest villages which were absorbed into the populated centres of today.
David Smith
Victoria
