February 26, 2003

WE were forced to visit Hamilton today (to see the dentist) and saw numerous schoolchildren with clipboards on Reid Street, apparently doing a survey on parking.

We would have thought that surveying existing vehicles, in a generally fully occupied street, was a serious waste of time and money, as it cannot possibly determine lost potential, or how many more customers, and business, Hamilton would certainly enjoy if proper convenient parking was ever provided. An assessment of this potential is what is needed, along with a practical, financially viable plan for fulfillment over time, ultimately producing a welcoming town for the rest of Bermuda to visit.

Right now, Hamilton can be compared to a pretty good mall in the States, nice shops and restaurants, etc. But unlike any successful mall, the parking is truly pathetic, and back to front, where the workforce takes precedence over the customers.

This turns off everyone like us who would like to come into the city to shop, visit the bank, go for lunch somewhere, and relax. Instead, it is always a tiresome race against the clock, a chore only to be endured when there is no alternative, even at this relatively quite time of year. We read about a plan to sacrifice more parking to turn some of the streets into pedestrian walkways.

What is the point if there is nowhere left for the hoped-for pedestrians like us to park? Rather obviously, we would think, pedestrians arrive in cars, and first of all require somewhere to leave them.

The reason for this perversity seems to be an aim to please the Hamilton workforce, rather than the customers who support it. Parking is provided to them first and foremost, with wide sidewalks for their coffee and lunch breaks, in the belief that that is more important than providing parking for people who want to be their customers.

For example, the Bank of Bermuda has a large parking lot off Bermudiana Road full of cars belonging to the tellers, etc, that the bank's customers have come to town to visit but cannot, because there is no parking left for them. As a consequence, opinion surveys carried out on the streets will be suspect, and misleading, as the odds are that the person surveyed will be part of the city's workforce and therefore strongly biased against curtailing their own parking for the benefit of anyone else. Driving around the car parks (amid people looking in vain for a space) reinforced that opinion: we found that substantial segments of the bigger car parks are devoted to all-day parking. The shortsighted town policy of catering to itself first, at the expense of the rest of the island that must form its customer base, impacts also on the tourists who we are told ride their scooters right through town and out the other side - looking in vain for scooter parking not already filled by shop employees who wait in vain to sell them something.

It does seem limited, topsy-turvy, and cart-before-the-horse thinking.

ALICE AND THE MAD HATTER

St. George's

@TIMES-18:St. George's neglect

March 2, 2003

ON a recent visit to St. George's we were shocked at the general scruffiness, lack of paint maintenance, and outright neglect. While several streets have been bricked over, the majority of the buildings strongly suggest that the slide into decrepitude is rapidly winning out over obviously expensive efforts to restore some of the streets.

Windows (and often the doors) are in terrible shape, many blinds are sagging or missing, and sashes with cracked putty are leaving much of the woodwork exposed to the weather. Some have been roughly painted over without re-puttying, a guarantee that trapped water between glass and sash will rot the wood, leaching spores down into the sills and frames. As the architecture of St. George's is its unique and most important asset, money spent in bricking over the streets would surely be better dedicated to preserving the houses.

To assure preservation long term, the funds available should then be spent with a view to minimising ongoing upkeep expenses - avoiding varnished cedar and extensive painted exterior woodwork that would appear today to be plainly beyond the present occupiers' ability or willingness to support.

Contractors tell us that roughly half the cost of repainting the exterior of a house is in the woodwork, the blinds and window frames, and in re-puttying and painting the sashes. Therefore, if this woodwork component could be removed, exterior upkeep would cost half as much, and restoration that much less daunting. Twelve years ago, when faced with exactly the same problems in our own elderly home, we decided to bite the bullet and install the then new "Bermuda mullioned" windows, double-glazed and - except for close inspection - completely indistinguishable from the "real thing". They have proved to be both handsome and maintenance-free, showing absolutely no sign of deterioration.

The house has been transformed from a drafty, buggy old place - prone to mildew and damp spots, where windows rattled in the wind and every sound from the street seemed amplified - into a dry, quiet home, much less expensive to maintain, where mildew is a thing of the past and everything stays fresh year round. Additionally, there is the benefit of significantly enhanced airconditioning and heating efficiency saving even more money and protecting the interior furnishings far better than before.

A similar house-by-house restoration plan, supported by available preservation funds and possibly temporary land tax exemption, would over time permanently dispel the present decrepitude of St. George's, halve ongoing maintenance costs, and by hermetically-sealed, double-glazed sashes, provide effective sound suppression for the occupants who often live directly on the street. A dry interior environment will dispel damp and mildew.

All these upgrades would enhance value and rents - providing ongoing funds to preserve the general structure. The key is to keep the St. George's buildings "lived in, loved, and looked after", fundamental to preserving older houses. At the rate the town is visibly deteriorating now, every day that passes will make the job that much more difficult.

CONSTRUCTIVE COMMENTS

City of Hamilton

@TIMES-18:Any common sense?

February 25, 2003

I'D like to borrow some space in your newspaper to congratulate Bermuda's Police and Customs officers on the complete shutdown of illegal drugs into the island, but I can't.

There are dozens of locations all over the island where I can go right now to purchase heroin and crack-cocaine. Hello, officers! Marijuana is large, bulky and smelly, therefore easy to bust; but marijuana smokers are not the ones responsible for the violent crimes being committed islandwide recently! Violent crimes are usually committed by crackheads or junkies desperate for their next fix. Pot-heads sit at home writing Letters to the Editors of the local newspapers.

For God's sake, even England is decriminalising marijuana use for private consumption. Is there any decency on Parliament Hill? Any common sense?

SPANISH POINT VOTER