All aspects of government offices have manifested into bureaucrats that of which consisting of procedures as their main objective; not problem solving. Once more they have adapted to achieving the goal of procedural quagmire as laid out by a textbook through the inception of "positive laws" (the exscuse given for the law is that it is for safety) Engineering offices within all governments are no exception. Ignorance really is a virtue to these guys....It boggles the mind how some one who is suppose to be so smart and educated does things so ignorant. I can see a trend in Kamloops, the developer has free rang to do what ever they feel necessary to market their developments. Traffic lights are being thrown up at every corner, some intersections have been redesigned costing millions like the Westsyde/Batchelor intersection, Westsyde road has 20 times more traffic. A perfect example, not one major accident in that intersection yet engineer's tor it up and redesigned it so every person has to come to a stop just about every time, why? The only reason I can see is to benefit the development in Batchelor Heights. There have been lights installed far to often, like why were lights put on the highway, They should be working to remove lights, there should be a law against lights on highways.We hear all sorts of talk of useless expensive over passes for pedestrians but if there was any vision they would be thinking of replacing heavy use traffic lights with overpasses, o project that could make a real difference in environment, safety, and ease of movement.
There are literally hundreds of other intersection in the area that don't use lights. Places like Dallas or Pritchard who's communities have thousands of people have no lights. The Dallas over pass is exactly what should be on every major intersection on the highway. The trailer park just up the road from Orchard park which has more people has not any lights at their intersection.That very intersection just up the road is exactly the right system with a long off ram and on ramp to assist with increasing and reducing speed safely. It's really a shame, the Romans and Egyptions built amazing social structures even by today's standards while these modern day morons today grow more ignorant by the day.
The old Hudson bay trail, a truck route which is very steep, half way down the jerks put a light. There is a new "upscale" development going in, I have no problem with a entry and exit, but it should only be on the right hand side. with long exit and entry to allow them to slow down and come up to speed away from traffic.this may look all safe and innocent now, but picture this road covered in ice and snow, you at the light, in your rear view mirror is a semi truck barreling down trying to stop.
TransCanada Highway, brand new, probably millions spent on rebuilding the intersection, Narrow minded morons built a short exit. This is an accident waiting to happen. They do this because it is to "code" aceptable and "normal" set out buy the "guidelines" of ministry of transport. Between them all, if brains were dynamite they wouldn't have enough to blow there nose!
This is the same light as above, you can see how the engineers actually took away the on ramp and planted grass, complete with under ground sprinklers. you ever make that mistake were you were looking back at some thing and you didn't realize that the car was still moving ahead? Me too.
By the way this is were the green ends in Valleyveiw, any land past this point doesn't get cleaned or maintained as the next five blocks of commercial gets ignored. This grass sure looks pamper' d, how much water do you think it uses Pat? Lets put a meter on it and find out.
This is yet another light put up for a development, also on the TransCanada Highway. I think of places like Prictchard, Chase, Barriere, all have have thousands of people but no traffic lights.
This is an example of a "positive law"
In a time when it's hip to be green and the price of fuel is well over $1
we should be working on removing lights on the highway instead of adding more.Imagine lights at every hole in the wall across Canada?
Another example of a deadly accident waiting to happen with their short short exit and entrances. What's sad is there are only about 10 houses that are lived in with a total of 30-50 when the devlopment is complete, hardly worth a light especially when there is already one at the other end of the block!
the flashing yellow lights can not be seen by on coming traffic, pointless and a hazard, Ignorance is bliss, isn't it boys?
these are just a few examples,
the city is plagued with stupidity
Extra Foods development, practicly brand new road having to be ripped up with tax payer's, (million bucks) money due to poor workmanship from developer, poor engineering, and inspection on city's part.
who pays; taxpayer
The tax payer foots the bill for things like larger water mains having to be put in or extensions or rebuilding of roads, stuff the developer should be paying for. Poor workmanship has resulted in jobs having to be done over or before their time. The Halston Bridge is a perfect example, the contractor screwed up so bad the joints have to be dug up and re-cemented each year or the bridge could fall into the river with out the proper attention. Was anybody held accountable?
I don't expect the city to be perfect , But I do expect some accountability and to be heard. As citizens there are expectations put on us, it's only fair that there be expectations put on the governments, politicians and people in power.
Now this one takes the cake....a make work project that the city used tax payers money with to narrow the road, for why I don't know what their reasoning is, all I know is people have a hard time making the turn, especially if there is traffic at the stop sign, and that is with regular vehicles, what really pisses me off is what if a fire truck or even a moving truck, camper, etc, wanted or needed to get through. Someone or something is going to get hurt because of this....bravo beanheads!
These next series of picts are from the last two years, this one from 2009. You can see a dark brownish haze over the city, that's not smoke, I originally thought it was from the wood lot across from Dumtar mill where the city had given a private corporation the ok to chip about two million pinebeatle tree over two years, though just last month (Jan 2010) we learned at a public forum that the city, MOE, and IHA had given their blessing, with out any public knowledge, aloud ACC to chip railway ties for the last two years. There was a gasp from the crowd when a common citizen in the crowd stood up during question period and informed the crowd of citizens who had gather that he worked for CN and that he personally saw them chipping, with out any protection he added (like even a common dust mask for the workers). he stated that indeed they have been chipping the ties and loading them into trucks and shipping them to PrinceGeorge or WilliamsLake. There was even some question that loads of rail tie chips went directly into the Dumtar incinerator just for fun, which drew another gasp from the crowd.
This picture is from Feb 2008, when we drove down town there was this thick brownish haze, This is one of the first time I had ever seen this before, I didn't piece the puzzle together till we found out two weeks ago that ACC has been chipping the railways ties for the last two year (goes back to 08 when it first started). most of you have no idea what this means...let me tell you, you know how children don't know how dangerous playing with fires or waking to close the the edge of a raging rive is....but when you see them doing it, you have this fear run through you because you know how close to death the kid came?
This pict is a few days later after the one previous, like being under murky water, the air seem to like pea soup. thicker at the bottom that at the top, obviously not smoke. We all know the dangers of the incinerator ACC is proposing to operate, but what people don't realize that the dust is ten times more toxic than the incinerator which was advertised as burning it so hot that 99% of it was gone. With the dust 100% of the chemicals are present which makes it much more dangers and on different levels, as not only nano toxins as small as .025 but the large nasty particulates as well that we breath that didn't get incinerated !
update may 2010:
ACC corporation has all the green lights to go ahead with chipping and incinerating of toxic railway ties, though apparently from the feedback ACC and MOE received at a public inquiry earlier of this year, ACC has voluntarily decide to relocate. The grass roots people are happy, and I have to admit I am a little relieved, though this is not the end.
ACC is just going to pick up and move down the valley a few hundred miles, they still have their permit to operate any where in BC and still get to keep the millions in taxpayers money they have collected under the clean energy bill. I picked up a copy of the permit from MOE (unfortunately to late to protest it), and the very first line in it says; "to operate a bioenergy generator" so I went to this public forum, and stood up and pointed out that rail way ties are soaked in creosote made from fossil fuels, and asked how in the hell MOE considered fossil fuel creosote bio? wood is bio, but the creosote is made from the left overs of crude oil. So the corporations came up with using it to treat wood with to make it last longer,
Chipping and burning railway ties process sends toxic dust and fumes into the air, this stuff travels in the wind, falls with the rain and doesn't break down for a long time ending up in the water table and effecting many for thousands of miles around.
Chipping and burning railway ties in any place on earth is wrong and should not be done anywhere, so I will continue the fight to stop the corporations such as ACC and the government from being unaccountable. There have been evidence that the government is covering up air quality tests as a story broke in the media of an instance of the BC Liberals hiding the airquality tests done in PrinceGearge showing the air was far beyond the safe levels . The question came to mind; has Kamloops been tested and if so, what were the results. The plain fact of the mater is all parts of the province, Canada, and the world need standardized tests of the air done by independent testers....but if this were done all corporations would have to clean up their emissions,( its easily done by sending exhaust through a reburn system for mills) quite burning toxic chemicals and clean up mills that pollute year round.
Then it dawned on me, creosote treatment is not the only use of the left over tar.
It is the left over sludge from crude oil after the fuelgrades and plastics are boiled off, and it needs to be used for something. So this tar that is a toxic gue that gets turned into a market to make money and profits while dealing with an environmental disaster, ends up they hide it under our noses and say its safe.
Wood on the other hand, they say is unsafe, God forbid if you have cedar shingle roof..they call you crazy and insurance companies won't touch you. Gasoline as it turns out is a byproduct, that is why they build gas guzzlers, plastics and fuel for the military are the real demand. Plastic has yet to peak, as it continues to grow more uses for it....this year they are making fences and shops out of plastics...all in a time when hear in BC,forest industry is going tits up?
The insanity of humanity continues...stay tuned for the ride of your life ;(
All aspects of government offices have manifested into bureaucrats that of which consisting of procedures as their main objective; not problem solving. Once more they have adapted to achieving the goal of procedural quagmire as laid out by a textbook through the inception of "positive laws" (the exscuse given for the law is that it is for safety) Engineering offices within all governments are no exception. Ignorance really is a virtue to these guys....It boggles the mind how some one who is suppose to be so smart and educated does things so ignorant. I can see a trend in Kamloops, the developer has free rang to do what ever they feel necessary to market their developments. Traffic lights are being thrown up at every corner, some intersections have been redesigned costing millions like the Westsyde/Batchelor intersection, Westsyde road has 20 times more traffic. A perfect example, not one major accident in that intersection yet engineer's tor it up and redesigned it so every person has to come to a stop just about every time, why? The only reason I can see is to benefit the development in Batchelor Heights. There have been lights installed far to often, like why were lights put on the highway, They should be working to remove lights, there should be a law against lights on highways.We hear all sorts of talk of useless expensive over passes for pedestrians but if there was any vision they would be thinking of replacing heavy use traffic lights with overpasses, o project that could make a real difference in environment, safety, and ease of movement.
