Posted on 12/28/2008 1:04:49 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Color the brake lights red as the column of cars backs up from the Caldecott Tunnel, the often bottled-up gateway between Contra Costa and Alameda counties.
Color drivers' moods red as the congestion worsens over a span of 45 years.
Many drivers are looking forward to relief from a long-planned $420 million fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel, but a lawsuit by Alameda County neighborhood groups and a bicycling advocacy organization could delay the project scheduled to begin in the summer and finish in 2014.
A ruling on the lawsuit is expected soon from Alameda County Superior Court judge Frank Roesch.
Some Contra Costa residents and political leaders called the lawsuit a selfish and frivolous road block to obvious traffic relief.
"Will it help the environment if you keep traffic moving at 2 mph and spewing pollution," said Jim Sconza, a Lafayette resident who has driven the tunnel for nearly 50 years. "I'm very frustrated It seems Southern California can get highway projects done, but in Northern California we get stuck with years of delays and frivolous lawsuits."
Groups suing said their challenge isn't about stopping the tunnel expansion but getting Caltrans to recognize and provide relief for adverse effects of the project. Those include increasing noise for Highway 24 neighbors, adding more traffic to crowded streets near the freeway, and possibly inducing some people to abandon BART and return to commuting in autos as the tunnel becomes more free flowing.
"We're not trying to stop the project, but make it a better project," said Robert Rayburn, executive director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, one of the plaintiffs. "One problem with this project is that it's been just about moving cars, and doesn't consider other types of mobility."
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
No doubt that would heighten public interest in how and where their highways are routed. Tightening 5th Amendment standards a bit I'd pay triple the highest market price in the last 20 years for any residential property within 1 mile of the highway and allow those folks to move out with dignity.
One of the things the black activists who first opposed downtown Interstates didn't notice was that the preliminary routing that took those highways through old innercity neighborhoods had their start out in the suburbs where planners sought to avoid higher priced commercial property.
Basically corporate interests pushed a good deal of the environmental burden these highways created off on strictly residential areas filled with women, children and their own employees ~
Oh, yeah, and stop lights every 1/2 mile through any area with residentially zoned property.
There's no comparing it to any other highway anywhere except maybe the Grand Trunk in India.
Besides, there are plenty of such bridges that should allow pedestrian access AND THEY DON'T!
Pedestrians are not allowed on freeways in Calif...
Probably ought to change your rules ~ you know, kind of like the rules in California's cattel country where the cows have the right of way!
In other words, it would cease being an interstate, which is apparently what you have in mind. I’d hate to see what you’d do to the railroad tracks near where I used to live.
Dude, I-270 in Gaithersburg is plenty busy. However, you are right, the traffic is actually quieter when it jams up.
They've since been moved out away from the city.
Again, all the designers have to do to solve the problem is to pay for the amount of right of way that's really needed. Then no one will care.
The point I'm making is that the drivers on that road should not benefit from my discomfort. Rather, it should be the other way around 'cause I was there first.
Wonder if they destroyed my favorite (1968-ish) parking spot with the third bore.
Orinda side, west bound; take the access road, and curve up and over the tunnel entrance. Large, secluded parking area to, uhh, erm, watch the pretty lights of the traffic.
To leave, continue around, down opposite side access road, and back onto east bound lanes.
Think so? Just ask all the folks whose homes are bulldozed to create your "sound buffer"...
Road right of ways should not be stolen through failure to purchase sufficient property to accommodate the way the road will be operated.
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