----- Original Message ----- From: "Christine V." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lisa Keller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Mark Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Jay Hanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 02, 2000 11:26 PM Subject: car problems exploding in Berkeley, the region and world Jeff Knowles City of Berkeley Traffic Engineer (510) 665-3417 Hi Jeff, I am very concerned about anti-ecological transportation and too much growth in Berkeley. I'm a W. Berkeley resident, former ER nurse and appointed by my friend and Council member Kriss Worthington to the West Berkeley Project Area Commission. For years, I used to participate during the mid to late 1980s in the West Berkeley planning process, in which we tried to limit further 4th Street retail development to a certain area, until I became Disaster Planning Commissioner in 1989, when conflicting meeting times prohibited me from continuing. I have owned a house on the 1800 block of 9th Street, between Hearst and Delaware since early 1984. I've seen auto and traffic problems explode in our area in the last 5 to 10 years. It's becoming a place I no longer want to live due to noise, pollution and aggressive driving by the 3,000 plus trucks, cabs, car-poolers from the North Berkeley BART casual carpools and drivers avoiding the gridlock at University and San Pablo, and trucks speeding to Truitt and White and the Marina hotels through our once-quiet neighborhood. They ram through our street honking, cursing and aiming at us as we try to cross OUR street on foot or ride a bicycle. The assumption is always that streets belong to cars, and trucks and that we who live here and walk are in the way. My adult son is a cyclist who has been hit twice while riding his bike in a legal manner. My partner Jim Orjala is transportation commissioner (appointed by our friend Linda Maio) and shares my view of cars as a problem. I am a long time friend also of Council member Dona Spring, with whom I (as a nurse as well) share deep concerns for safety rights of the wheelchair and disabled community in Berkeley, which is larger per capita here than anywhere else in the US, being the home of the disabled rights movement. I am deeply disturbed by the tacit common assumption which I hear in meetings and conversations, that cars are a given and that we collectively must always and everywhere accommodate them, since they are framed as "the norm" for transportation and that indeed traveling long distances routinely is also "normal". This view prevails among the 4th St merchants (most live more peacefully elsewhere) and many car driving visitors to West Berkeley and the city in general. Car acceptance/promotion/defense as "normal" also seems appallingly (to me) prevalent among my fellow West Berkeley PAC appointees and many residents, like John Fordice who in meetings is militant about being able to park his 6 (six) cars near his house at 5th and Hearst. I do not share this car-as-normal car-as-first view, which assumes that every other concern is "other" or less normal. Many of my immediate neighbors on 9th Street have views and concerns like mine. I have studied the pernicious effects of cars and traffic more than most, apparently, and I am in contact with people in other cities with much better traffic calming and auto control, and alternatives to driving cars. Portland and Victoria BC are examples. I am familiar with Wolfgang Sachs (For Love of the Automobile :looking back into the history of our desires) and Wolfgang Zuckermann ( End of the Road: from world car crisis to sustainable transportation) on cars, and many of the street reclaiming movements. I also wonder what will happen when the world petroleum supply begins to dry up in he next few years, according to petroleum geologists I am in contact with (see www.dieoff.com and Peak of Oil Production http://www.hubbertpeak.com/ ). Discovery of petroleum worldwide peaked 30 years ago and has declined ever since. Production is now following and will decline greatly in our lifetime, gradually driving prices up further while consumption increases exponentially. Will all these enraged and aggressive US and Bay Area car addicts soon begin to shoot each other and the rest of us for access to gas? No system can support exponential growth for long. We are approaching the end of "infinite" expansion both in Berkeley and the world. When will public education about this worldwide energy and growth problem commence? Please see Overshoot by William Catton Jr, God's Last Offer by Ed Ayres of Worldwatch, GeoDestines by Walter Youngquist, and Ecological and General Systems: An Introduction to Systems Ecology by Howard T. Odum. Not to mention The Limits to Growth, from 1972. Something has to be done locally and regionally in the meantime. Berkeley is supposed to be a progressive town, but lately I'm having a lot of doubts, with the yuppie dot-com influx of delirious mega-shoppers and house buyers with SUVs who are irritated by the indigenous working poor, like me and others, whose real wages are falling and who can't afford and don't shop at 4th Street. Some kinds of growth are cancers, cancers that kill the host. I read your statement on the Berkeley city website. I'd like to hear more about your analysis of our Berkeley growth-car-transportation problems, and I do hope you will do better than the last person. Sincerely, Christine Vida Christine Vida Ecology - Health - Justice P.O. Box 9761, Berkeley, CA 94709-0761 USA Tel: (510) 841-1291 _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
