Re: 鈥淰ictoria鈥檚 bike lanes are a pricey vanity project,鈥� opinion, Oct. 28.
Michel Murray鈥檚 comment is right on point, but for one point.
The number going into this project was $7.75 million, not $7.0 million. It quickly ballooned to $14.4 million. When questioned on this point (it鈥檚 on video record), Mayor Lisa Helps rationalized it by explaining that this 鈥渃ash allocation鈥� was established as the city had not performed public consultation, prepared detailed design, done the engineering and done the needed costing to establish a budget.
This is not the way a fiscally responsible city administration should conduct the business of spending the taxpayers鈥� money. If the city had done this and taken it to the public with the real costs of the project, the bike lanes would have been stalled at the gate.
Brian Kendrick
Fairfield
