From the publishers
by Carolyn Chase
actually noticed my quality of life edge downward last
week. Unlike most factors in a region's declining quality of life which
tends to creep up on you over a period of years or decades this was single
moment, a glaring signal of growth overtaking infrastructure's capacity
to cope. For many people, it hits home when they see the beach closure signs,
as reported in this annual beach issue. For others, it's when a natural
area is paved over for a parking lot, or when a favorite tree is chopped
down.
For me, it happened on my way home from a visit
to the UCSD Geisel library. During most of the year, I have occasion to
be on campus at least once a week. My regular route is to exit the campus
past the VA hospital, make a left turn to La Jolla Village Drive, cruise
happily south onto Highway 5. The entry to I-5 is one of the nicest banked
ramps in the system: the kind where you have plenty of room to get up to
speed so you can merge safely and easily with the traffic.
But no longer. Last week, rather than cruising
up to speed along a beautiful, designed entry way, I was brought to an abrupt
halt by a end-of-the-entry-ramp signal, blindly bringing me down to zero
and demanding that I stop all forward momentum and progress, then reaccelerate
in a shorter distance from zero at the very end of the bank. This requires
more fuel, acceleration over a much, much smaller merging distance and more
time waiting at the signal. This flies in the face of any design there ever
was for this system. And for what?
I have never encountered heavy traffic
in this section, except in the case of an accident. The signal was in operation
at a relatively off-hour of the day, when there was no significant traffic.
I calculate that, given the number of times I use this entry way, this needless
delay will cost me an extra half-hour or more over the course of a year.
Not counting, of course, more fuel wasted with a rapid acceleration and
more risk entering traffic at a slower speed. And for what?
I first noticed this type of signal in yes
folks Los Angeles, where the freeway backups are legendary and persistent,
and the signals are pervasive. The signals are becoming pervasive here as
well. Now I'm beginning to wonder... do the signals come before or
after the problems? It seems there will certainly come a day when
most will never remember what it was like to be able to freely enter the
freeways; these people will suffer no sense of loss. The status quo will
simply have been reduced for the theoretical good of all. By then, I guess,
the planners at Caltrans have figured that traffic will be so bad that everyone
will see what a good thing these signals are. But will somebody explain
to me exactly why these ramp police are needed when the traffic level is
moving fast and easy? Or is this just another sign of the end of the era
of "freeways." Can we can look forward to having a stop sign at
every entrance just so we can make a running start from zero to 60 in just
a few feet, while the on ramp is used as a stop-and-go waiting ramp?
Quality of life can be an ephemeral thing,
I suppose. And I guess it's healthy to begin to separate any quality of
life that I have attached to my car and way things used to be before we
decided that the route to regional success was continued growth, growth,
growth. After all, if the next million people to come here for our prosperity
need another million cars, the resulting backups are obvious. Therefore,
Caltrans is just a bit ahead of the game by installing these systems now.
Maybe so. But at ten at night, after choir
rehearsal each week, you just might see one citizen defying this mindless
and wasteful system, enjoying a nostalgic, illegal, but safer and greatly
more satisfying entry on the way home.
Correction: In the July issue, an editing error
in Minister Masada's column on the Port District usage and venting of methyl
bromide led to a combination of sentences implying that she might, under
some conditions, endorse the position that there could be an acceptable
use of a Category 1 acute toxin near a population. This is not the case,
and we regret this error. In the meantime, the Port has finally acceded
to community demands and decided to stop the fumigations.
Development plans for the Del Mar Mesa (Highway
56 routing, Carmel Mountain, Neighborhood 8A, the Future Urbanizing area)
are moving ahead. Please join me at a Town Hall forum at the Carmel Valley
Library on August 20th (see page 15) to take a look at how efforts to conserve
are faring against efforts to build and how to take part. Please come up
to me and say hello, if you're able to attend.
