LAT's Parsons: An Issue Bigger Than a Toll Road

[question everything]

From the Los Angeles Times

DANA PARSONS / ORANGE COUNTY
An Issue Bigger Than a Toll Road
Dana Parsons

March 8, 2006


(snip)

I'm not going to rehash that trade-off today. I have a narrower question: Does it matter when one generation sets aside land as a gift to society, only to have the next one take it away? In broad strokes, that's what's happening with the proposed construction of the six-lane Foothill South tollway through a stretch of San Onofre State Beach. It would extend the existing 241 tollway from its Rancho Santa Margarita endpoint to Interstate 5 near San Clemente.

It would relieve traffic. I'm not here to argue that, nor to lobby on whether there might be better routes. I'm only asking whether we have an obligation to honor a compact that set aside land for all to enjoy.

(snip)

But I'd suggest there's an ethical question — not an environmental one — to be asked about whether parkland is nothing more than currency to be traded when the time is right. The federal government is leasing the San Onofre land to the state, but no one at the time of the agreement said, in essence, "Enjoy this parkland until they build a superhighway through it." The land was a gift of nature to future generations.

(snip)

The tollway wouldn't destroy the state park, but it would alter it forever. Supporters might argue, even reluctantly, that it's the price we must pay for progress. So it does come down to whether we're beholden, even in changing times, to a public gift given long ago. The tollway agency has cast its vote. It's left for the rest of us to imagine six lanes of highway running through what once seemed like a pretty cool present.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-parsons8mar08,1,4132508.column?coll=la-editions-orange

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. "It would relieve traffic. I'm not here to argue that"

I would argue that it wouldn't relieve anything. It simply pushes the problem to where the 5 would connect to the thing. In my experience none of these projects have relieved the traffic, they just cause more cars to bunch up on more lanes.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Let's pave the whole country to relieve traffic

since we vote for our cars and with our cars, maybe we should start voting from and in our cars?
We'd never have to leave the driver's seat.