From: mike_p@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael John Petterson)
Subject: Re: Century Freeway completion
Keywords: Streets for People
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Distribution: la
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 23:09:15 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.051628.2388@ttinews.tti.com> lester@soldev.tti.com (jim) writes:
>In article <1992Dec9.033732.17899@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>>There is a desperate need for the 710 linkup. It connects Pasadena and
>>South Pasadenans with influential friends have been using every trick
>>in the book to block it for 20 or more years.
>>As for the "residential areas" they've had 20-30 years' notice of
>>the route, and instead of relocating they continued to build and buy.
>  Why should anyone go along with forced relocation if they love their
>  home and neighborhood?  SoPas is architecturally unique in California.

Of course it's ok to relocate the poor.  Their homes weren't worth anything
in the first place.  I think the Western route is much better.  We don't
need parks either.
>>This is one of the clearest cases in the country of a few imposing
>>massive costs on the many by blocking the missing link.
>  Huh?  I don't know which is sillier, "imposing" or "massive costs."
>  How much is this freeway extension supposed to cost, per foot?
>  The more freeways you build, the more you encourage gridlock.

Exactly, the ones with the money should be the only ones allowed to drive.
South Pas. has access to all the freeway they need, if others can't afford to
live near the freeway, they don't need the freeway.  They only cause gridlock
trapping the people who _really_ need the freeway.
>>What is worse, those s.o.b.'s in South Pasadena blocked off their
>>streets so the traffic couldn't flow over them in the natural
>>pattern caused by the missing link. That city is one of the prime
>>examples in the country of a few giving the finger to the many.
>  Maybe they (in SoPas) feel infringed on by "the many" and would like
>  to preserve their way of life.  The city is only a few square miles,
>  so such a freeway would alter the entire city's existence (IMHO).

Of course inner-city areas such as South-Central or East L.A. probably
didn't appreciate the imposition either; but who cares about that, they
let their architecture go to pot.  I'm sure it was interesting once,
but there might as well be a freeway going through there since it was
wasted in the first place.


>>If everybody did it, we wouldn't have power plants, highways,
>>or any other public facilities we need.
>  Yea...imagine...  Maybe we'd have clean, fast trains instead.  But the
>  fact is, everybody did NOT do as SoPas is doing.  Some politicians sell
>  out, some citizens don't care, and others believe a freeway thru their
>  town will help them (more business, jobs, easier commuting).
>  Frankly, SoPas is an endangered place.  There isn't another town quite
>  like it in California.  I think their right to exist far outweighs the
>  "right" of commuters to have a marginally faster way (at great taxpayer
>  expense) to get to work.
>
I couldn't agree more.  South Pasadena has the "right" to "exist" unlike 
Northwest Pas. or Southcentral L.A., which, if you think about it, who really
cares.  South Pas. has worked for it, they deserve the isolation and 
privilege that comes with money.  I do not see what the pro-710 people
are saying.  Come on, it's the American Way.

Mike Petterson
mike_p@cheshire.oxy.edu

(;-), for the sarcasm impaired)


Newsgroups: la.general