Yesterday I watched a hawk circle above Regents Road bridge near Rose Canyon, majestic in the early morning mist. A spectacle not likely repeated over a 25,000-trip-a-day thoroughfare, the bird led me to consider other bridge repercussions.
Weary of reading letters to the editor about the “spoiled children” and “hysterics” of the West End, I offer this background:
After 25 years of residence in Del Mar, the concurrent detours of divorce and deployment to Iraq led me to rent on Genesee Avenue for four years, then to buy in UC. Proximity and charm were easy to find here.
For those who think a traffic problem exists on Genesee, try commuting late afternoons north through the I5-805 merge. You will acquire fresh perspective.
My current daily commute, often at p.m. rush, from Scripps Hospital to Governor, right down the throat of Genesee Avenue, is usually under ten minutes. I find the lights are synchronized for good flow north/south. Yes, occasionally, there is a problem but it is the exception. I really see no serious delays on Genesee, at least when I travel, and if you examine the excellent studies available you will learn they are not inevitable. Unless, of course, we build 30- story high-rises in Costa Verde and double the UTC mall. Developers will push such agendas hard, but I’m hoping hysterics and spoiled children elsewhere fight such overbuilding with the same zeal as us bridge fanatics. But I digress.
Look first at our quaint little Plaza shopping center at Regents and Genesee. The Evans Hotel Group bought this center out of bankruptcy years ago, and cheap. Increased traffic flow transforms this into a vastly more valuable property and they reap millions in profit. Good for them. American dream and all that. This windfall must translate to higher rents, much higher, to sustain a return on investment. You can probably say goodbye to a number of existing businesses, including Henry’s Market, which will not support serious rental escalations. The Plaza owners, present or new, will not care less that this grocery store is convenient for you, because it’s all about money. And ditto for lots of other small Plaza businesses. Maybe the whole thing can just be rezoned for a nice lucrative high-rise. Call me hysterical.
Look at Governor Drive. I see barefoot kids, dogs, baby carriages, moms and frail elderly crossing every day. It has a sort of small-town, almost Norman Rockwell feel to it. I like that. I guess it reminds me of my upstate New York birthright. I seriously believe this atmosphere will be in jeopardy with so much added traffic.
Why must we join, as one writer put it, “the big leagues of city life” and surrender what ought to be most important to us? Is it really necessary to get from dot to dot so expeditiously? Can we not look at what we lose between the dots?
Besides internecine jealousies of noise levels, there is so much that both ends of UC stand to lose with such an intrusion.
Last big impact ” Rose Canyon. I have heard all the snickering about Rose Canyon not being Yosemite, about the sewer pipe and the tracks. Here’s an exercise. Go stand in Rose Canyon’s heart, at the proposed bridge site. Soak it in for 15 minutes. Then go stand under the Genesee Avenue bridge. Soak that in, too. If you are neither deaf nor blind you will realize the stark reality of what lies ahead for Rose Canyon, a loss never to be reclaimed. And what about all those agency objections and unanswered questions?
Finally, who can discuss this issue now without hearing about safety and fire escape routes? With all respect to fire disasters, safety was never even mentioned in the planning stages of this bridge, nor in the EIR. To refute a huge pile of evidence against the bridge, it was so cunning to invoke the emotions of this disaster. Arguing against safety is akin to arguing against motherhood. It was the perfect trump card for developers and in came the markers for council votes, the mayor included. My God, if we are in danger, what about La Jolla? Why are fire and police not wringing their hands to carve escape routes out of this death trap?
For anyone who thought the City Council meeting of Aug. 1 was a display of democracy and the will of the people, well, veteran observers of City Council admitted never having witnessed such a blatant scripted presentation of bias, fear-mongering, and wholesale disregard of evidence from reputable sources. I am curious to learn how this decision withstands the scrutiny of an impartial bench.
Philosophically speaking, after you fill in all the open spaces, after you move the airport so as to move more people in and out faster than before, and after every last dollar of development profit has been squeezed out of the Golden Triangle, when do we stop all this madness?
Will you bulldoze in the remaining canyons? No, seriously? Will you ever accept that the precious natural resources we have here are finite? That future kids might not even know what an open-space canyonland park looks like until you drive them an hour away?
Perhaps the nagging of a spoiled child. Maybe I just want that hawk around for a long time.
” Bob Brucker is a resident of University City.