Nice Bike Rack

The art of the Native Peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast is world famous and of course we have lots of it around here but I thought this was an especially nice modern example of it on a bike rack at Fisherman's Wharf. I don't know who did the Orca design but it is very attractive.

F. W. Francis Street Clock

Here's one of several antique street clocks remaining in Victoria, this one on Broughton Street downtown. I suspect many of today's younger set will find it challenging to discover the time from this old analog style timepiece, so it is nice to have these old clocks preserved and in working order. If you want to find out a bit more about this particular clock, click on the photo to the left to expand it to readable size.

Bus Stop 1

Some time ago I embarked on a short series of photos depicting "Street Furniture" such as benches, bike racks, street clocks and trash bins, etc. I neglected, however, our bus stops, and I propose to remedy this over the next few days. I seldom use the public transportation system because I can usually walk downtown in about the same amount of time I'd spend waiting at the bus stop. Of course, if I was really organized I would get a bus schedule and walk out to the bus stop at the appropriate time. Nevertheless, the buses don't come very often around here. People are still very car focused and if gas prices are having any effect I'm guessing that it is that more people are walking and cycling rather than switching to public transport.

Street Furniture Revisited

Some time ago I did a short series of photos on street furniture - objects such as bike racks and benches. Another kind of furniture is also found in our streets, actual house furniture that has been discarded and left on the roadside. Sometimes, when the furniture is clean and in good condition, this is motivated by a real wish to be charitable and the furniture is left outside for anyone who wishes to take it away and use it. Much of the time, however, I suspect it is simply easier to leave it outside on the curb than it is to recycle or dispose of it properly. In any case, if you walk or drive around this city you will often see furniture and other items left on the street. I don't remember this happening when I was young forty or fifty years ago and I wonder what it says about changing attitudes towards furniture/possessions/charity/recycling....

New Street Parking System

Victoria is now implementing a new parking system on downtown streets. The blue post above indicates a parking space with a specific number. A little further up the street you can see the device on the left, which is where you pay for your parking space. It takes coins or credit cards or a parking card you can buy from the city. That little panel on the top provides solar power. On the right is a close-up of the payment panel. You can find out more about this new system by visiting the City of Victoria website.

Street Furniture V - Benches 1

Looking like something out of a fairy tale, the above is a detail from what you get when you involve community artists and artisans in the production of street furniture. It's a cob bench located in Victoria West just above Banfield Park. It was put together by the Vic West community and resides in the Vic West community garden.The benches to the right and left are the City of Victoria's latest benches, in what I think of as the prison modern style

Below is a wider angle photo of the Vic West cob bench. there are several other cob benches in the city and I will add photos of them as I locate them.

Street Furniture IV - Bike Racks

As a cyclist I appreciate the growing number of bike racks around the city. However, it has to be admitted that Victoria's bike racks are pretty uninspired compared to some I have seen on other CDP blogs. The best of a dull lot are those in Chinatown, as above. I hope someone will enlighten me as to the meaning of the Chinese characters on the rack. Below are two of the severely functional designs found elsewhere on the city streets. As the number of cyclists increases, these racks will need to increase also. I hope the city will ask our many artists to step up with some more interesting designs for new ones.

Street Furniture II - Mechanical Clocks

Another kind of street furniture found in most cities are clocks. Perhaps less important than they were a few decades ago because of the proliferation of digital time devices attached to almost everything now (cell phones, computers, calculators, cameras, etc.) as well as the availability of quartz watches that are both accurate and inexpensive, these public clocks are nevertheless a good symbol of how time-conscious modern society is. This particular clock on the corner of View and Government Streets at the entrance to Bastion Square has been ticking since it was erected by the city in 1890. It's been hit a few times by passing vehicles. You can see the dangling wires on the left side where a couple of street lamp globes were knocked off. This is a mechanical clock that needs winding so twice a week a city worker opens the base and winds it up. You can find out more about Victoria's mechanical clocks by clicking here.

Children nowadays, growing up with watches and clocks that give the time in lcd numbers, often cannot read these old 12 hour circular clocks. In another 20 or 30 years this way of telling time will be little more than a historical curiosity.

Street Furniture I - Parking Meters

I tend to get into a rut with landscape photos and forget or ignore all those little things that just don't register because I see them every day. So, I've lined up a number of posts I'm calling Street Furniture. Many of these things are probably global and I hope people will comment on similar things they have in their cities. Today's post is something that is found on all our streets in the downtown core, parking meters. Two bits (25 cents) buys you ten minutes. A loonie (one dollar coin) rents you a parking space for 50 minutes. There are meter readers who check for expired meters and if your car is parked longer than you have paid for, you will be given a parking ticket. I'm not sure how much the fine is now but it used to be twenty dollars. While I suspect they earn a little income for the city and also serve to regulate parking to some extent, I think these meters contribute to the problem of downtown core decay that many major cities are experiencing. Though our culture is becoming a little less car-oriented, most people still depend on their cars to get them to where they can shop. I suspect a major advantage of suburban malls over downtown stores is that the former offer extensive free parking. These parking meters are a deterrent to shopping downtown. They don't create any additional parking space, they only add expense and risk to the downtown shopping experience. Seems foolish to me. (or maybe not so foolish - click "comments" below to see some other points of view.)

In Chinatown, the posts that hold the meters upright are painted bright red, as in the photo to the left. The rest of Victoria's meters are on metallic gray posts.