One to Watch: CA Campaigners Stop New Toll Road
KFMB TV reports that some 3k people attended a public hearing in Del Mar, California to have their say regarding a toll road extension through San Onofre State Park. Supporters say the project will end gridlock on I-5 (a.k.a. “the five”) running between Orange County and San Diego County. Opponents contend that the Route 241 extension would wipe out endangered species, ruin the park and destroy Trestles Beach, a popular surfing site. San Diego City Councilmember Donna Frye sided with the nay-sayers. "What we're saying to future generations is that roads and cement and going fast mean more to us than our natural resources and our state parks?” After a 14-hour-long meeting, the state Coastal Commission voted eight to two against the new tarmac. Given that the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is located between San Onofre State Beach and San Onofre Surf Beach, Dude, how bad could a road extension be? Given the UK's powerful [green] anti-roads lobby, we reckon it won't be long before California's Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (or similar) girds-up for more Golden State pavement battles.
Glenn is a baby-boomer, born in 1954. Along with his wife, he makes his home in Connecticut. Employed in the public sector as an Information Tedchnology Specialist, Glenn has long been a car fan. Past rides have included heavy iron such as a 1967 GTO, to a V8 T-Bird. In between those high-horsepower cars, he's owned a pair of BMW 320i's. Now, with a daily commute of 40 miles, his concession to MPG dictates the ownership of a 2006 Honda Civic coupe which, while fun to drive, is a modest car for a pistonhead. As an avid reader, Glenn enjoys TTAC, along with many other auto-realated sites, and the occasional good book. As an avid electronic junkie, Glenn holds an Advanced Class amateur ("ham") radio license, and is into many things electronic. From a satellite radio and portable GPS unit in the cars, to a modest home theater system and radio-intercom in his home, if it's run by the movement of electrons, he's interested. :-)
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@ akatsuki: Seriously why do you care? I think it's an interesting story. Do you live in the area... No. ...and did you lose the argument? And no. This is a fact: The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is located between San Onofre State Beach and San Onofre Surf Beach. So by asking "how bad could a road extension be," comparatively speaking, I don't feel that I'm... "taking on the mantle of attacking every single car-unfriendly policy all over the country in some selfless act of polluting goodness." Really. :-)
You know what? It's a good thing that discussions like this take place in a public forum with the people in the higher seating positions actually listening to both sides. There are many areas of the world where this doesn't happen. Like my neck of the woods... Just type in 'Cobb County School Board' and throw in the words laptop, redistricting, or courts and you'll find that when taxpayer money talks, the parasites of humanity not only walk; they feast over the seven figure sums.
That laptop computers-for-all boondoggle got Cobb County school officials into quite a kerfuffle, and deservedly. But the money was pouring in, and a use for it will always be found. I'm not anti-technology (my son is a computer scientist) but educators' reverance for computers as magical learning devices reminds me of that scene in Kubrick's "2001" where the apes gather around the monolith. There seems to be a belief that possessing a computer renders unnecessary the knowledge and skills used by the people who invented the computer.