Conversations around the roundabout

I’d been thinking about construction of the final Caledon section of the connection between Highway 50 North of Bolton and Coleraine Drive forming a bypass of the village’s downtown. The Highway 50 connection will be a roundabout similar to one at the junction of Olde Baseline and Dixie Roads. I have no idea what has taken Ontario so long in adapting “roundabouts.” Anywhere we’ve encountered these ‘traffic circles,’ in Eastern Canada, the Caribbean or Europe, I’ve marveled at how efficiently they allow motorists to proceed in any one of several directions without the delay caused by traffic signals. Goodness knows Highway 50 has enough of those.

In any event, we were driving the highway connecting New Brunswick with the Confederation Bridge and Prince Edward Island. Halfway between the Trans-Canada Highway and the bridge, you’ll find a classic traffic circle with one leg leading into the small coastal town of Port Elgin. Quick as a wink, we made our way around the round-about and into town, stopping at a small, ramshackle grocery story hardly worthy of the name. There was nothing in the shelves we wanted until Lynda rounded the corner of an aisle and spotted two packages. Her eyes lit up like headlights. She scooped both packages in a flash. You see, back home, she’d run out of old-fashioned, “warm-light” 40 watt incandescent light bulbs. “You can’t get these in Bolton,” she said and, “I hate the light from those new bulbs.”

The roundabout at Port Elgin had taken us into the middle of a debate which will gain traction again this fall. One hundred and seventy-five watt incandescent bulbs have been banned from store shelves since the first of the year, the handiwork of John Baird when he was the Harper “we know better than you do” Government’s Environment Minister. Sixty and 40 watt bulbs will be banned as of Dec. 31 this year which explains why Lynda was loading up her supply.

There’s good reason for banning these energy inefficient bulbs over time. Half their energy is wasted as heat. In Germany, for example, using the new forms of light bulbs, CFL’s or LED’s, might save the equivalent of three nuclear power plants.

It’s the nanny state mentality in this country which drives critics to drink. Why would you ban good old fashioned, albeit inefficient light bulbs before you had a workable plan to dispose of the mercury used in CFL’s or before the genius of science completed its work of creating an super-efficient bulb offering the equivalent of an incandescent glow.

By definition, forcing Canadians to purchase much more expensive light bulbs containing a highly toxic chemical in the interests of appearing greener than green is nothing more than a hidden tax by another name.

That was the discussion returning to our campsite in New Brunswick by way of the Port Elgin round-about. It’s efficient as will be the traffic circle on Highway 50 where it joins Coleraine Drive within the next three years. The light bulb ban is another matter. By way of note, Lynda cleaned out the available stock at the Port Elgin grocery store. Another lady cleaned out the stock of a Home Hardware store in Chester, Nova Scotia to the tune of $500. More information about the program is available on the web site at streetlights-solar.