It was a slow start to my day this morning (I didn't get up
until 7:30!). No particular reason - I just didn't feel like rushing and it
seemed like ones of those days when one should not have to rush. Even the news items on either the CBC or the
Globe and Mail sites seemed somewhat un-stimulating or uninteresting. It was
almost as if we were already in the dog days of summer. Perhaps three days in a row of sun will do
that to a body who is just waking up from the extended hibernation that is
winter in Ontario. At any rate I had time, as I ate my breakfast of rice and a
handful of peanuts, to scroll through my Facebook page. That was when I saw an
item posted by a friend of a friend stating that Salt Spring and
Galiano Islands had been selected for the building of a fixed bridge link between
the Islands and Duncan on Vancouver Island. The news release included a
detailed map etc. It made some sense. If P.E.I. can have a fixed link, why not
Salt Spring?
I initially thought - great no more waiting for ferries or
paying the $11.00 walk on fee. I started to think about how easy it would be to
go back and forth between my son's house in Duncan and my friend's house on
Salt Spring Island. Anyone who has spent
any time on the west coast knows the hassle and the cost of the BC ferry
system. Trying to cross from the mainland to one of the islands especially
during the busy times can mean hours of waiting and the expenditure (if you are
in a car) of the week's grocery money. A fixed link would solve all of those
problems. I then fairly quickly realized that if it would be convenient for me, then it would
be convenient for a whole bunch of other people. And that would not be a good
thing.
The roads on Salt Spring are already crazy busy on weekends.
Parking in Ganges is almost impossible and there are times when even crossing
the road can be problematic. If the government made it easier to get on the
island, it would just be too crowded. The more I thought about it, the more
frustrated and irritated I became. It sounded like one of those typical
government plans that someone in an office tower thought of. Perhaps someone
who had never been on one of the islands. Clearly that person needed to
re-think the problem or perhaps even figure out if there is really a problem that
needs to be solved. Adding more cars could not be a solution to anything. I started to suspect that the initiative for
the plan came from people who lived on the islands but wanted to commute
elsewhere to work. Clearly people with political connections.
I went through my morning routines, spent a hour or two
playing with wool and then went for a walk downtown to the library. In the back
of my mind was this nagging thought that I should do something. I was not too
sure what as I am not a resident of Salt Spring or for the matter of B.C., but
I felt this urge to be active on this topic.
After lunch I check my Facebook page again to see if there
was any more information.... another friend had posted the comment that it had
been an April Fools joke! People who lived on the Island had first seen the
post on April 1 and all of them knew it was just someone with time on
their hands being a bit silly.
It was only us off-slanders who got taken in. Good joke -
creative, funny and just almost possible enough to suck us in. The problem is
that either one ignores all of these bits and pieces of "news" (and
thereby risking ignoring something that is really important) or one spends
hours and hours on the internet checking out how reliable the information is.
We may have more access to "news" than ever before but I am just not
sure if we have the capacity to determine what is real and what is not.
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