Keep litter, mess off our highways

Dear Editor: I was riding my bicycle from Summerland to Penticton earlier today and was disappointed/disgusted by the amount of trash along the highway and in the ditch.

I found it interesting how much more one notices from a bike versus a vehicle. One could make good money just picking up the refundable cans and bottles. Then, upon entering Penticton, one sees the bloody weed patch in the vacant property between the golf course parking and the highway (Eckhardt Ave).

A great entry into Penticton. Add to this the multitude of overgrown and neglected properties on many of the older streets. Going past all of this might make a visitor wonder if they are in a third-world country.

Travelling down some streets with older houses, one can see the magnificent job some home owners have done with their properties and their houses and the pride of ownership they show.

Conversely, one only has to look at many other properties to see the opposite. Makes one wonder if we have some slum landlords who are simply sitting on potential development properties and not prepared to do any improvements.

If the Ministry of Highways is unable or unwilling to clean up our roadsides coming into our city, then perhaps we need an “adopt a highway” initiative. I would volunteer for such an initiative. We also need our bylaw officers to deal with derelict properties. If they are stretched beyond capacity, then we need more of them.

Why can't we make our city part of the “Beautiful British Columbia” that we sell to tourists? David Cleveland Penticton