Capital Daily for Sunday, August 2

Ladysmith Days is on this weekend, and the schedule reads like a small-town summer distilled: a bullhead fishing derby for the little ones, a nail-driving contest, a beer garden, zucchini races, and a greasy pole.

The festival kicks off at 7 a.m. Saturday with the Bullhead Derby at Oyster Bay Marina, followed by a Rotary pancake breakfast at Transfer Beach at 9:30 a.m. Vancouver Island Pro Wrestling closes out Saturday. Sunday brings the Soap Box Derby and a skateboard demo downtown at 10 a.m., then live bands at Transfer Beach with headliner Sunset Strip.

Closer to home, Victoria Buzz counted 21 things to do over the BC Day long weekend. Sunfest, BC's biggest country music festival, is at Laketown Ranch in Cowichan with headliners Tyler Hubbard, John Pardi, and Riley Green. The first-ever Salsa Festival Victoria takes over the heart of the city for two nights of open-air dancing, and Pacific FC plays its first home match at Starlight Stadium since the World Cup break.

If you'd rather stay put, the markets are running all August. James Bay Community Market, in its 30th year, gathers 60-plus vendors every Saturday, and Butchart Gardens sends up fireworks every Saturday night at 9.

Every few months, Langford Mayor Scott Goodmanson climbs onto the Millstream overpass around 8:30 a.m. and starts counting cars flowing east toward Victoria with a mechanical clicker. There's a stretch where the Trans-Canada opens to eight lanes with the on-ramps, and that's where his thumb sometimes quits.

He does it to feel the traffic beyond a spreadsheet. Over the past year and a half, he's watched the morning crunch stretch to three hours, 7 to 10 a.m., and it's no longer just commuters. "You don't want to head up Veterans at 2 p.m. on a Saturday," he said.

Council recently passed Langford's first master transportation and active-transportation plans, aiming for 42 per cent of trips to be made on foot, by bike or by bus once the city hits 100,000 people. Right now, with 60,000 residents, it's about 13 per cent. The wish list runs to roughly $135 million, including pedestrian overpasses near Ruth King Elementary and over Sooke Road for the Galloping Goose.

Goodmanson grew up walking to Ruth King himself. He says parents now drive kids who live blocks away because the roads don't feel safe. "We just don't have space to build way more bigger highways."