With regard to road changes in Victoria, an exasperated letter wonders: “What is wrong with the engineering department at the city? Can’t they see and understand the havoc and potential road-rage they are creating?”

Answer: Nothing is wrong.

Yes, they see it clearly. In fact, frustration is the point. Havoc, road-rage, “tailback” and “gridlock” are features, not bugs.

Starting back when Dean Fortin was mayor, city traffic planners began to “deprioritize” vehicle traffic.

Blocking vehicle access to Beacon Hill Park was the regime’s first test case.

Their careers having survived the public’s outrage, traffic planners became emboldened.

Since then, nearly every major road project in Victoria incorporated traffic calming as its central feature.

The expectation is that frustrated drivers will respond like children, will eventually “grow up” and will choose different forms of transportation.

That there are often no practical alternatives to a motor vehicle for many Victorians is of no consequence to city planners.

Alternatives are for me and you to figure out.

Obviously this approach is demeaning and undemocratic.

But that’s their plan, and they’re sticking to it.

Successive mayors and councillors wash their hands of any blame for ­everyone’s lost........

© Times Colonist