Reserves
Where you belong!!
Even in Los Angeles, where celebrities dress their pets in designer clothes, a proposal for a $455,000 animal path over the 405 Freeway has riled residents who say scarce transportation dollars should not be used to help deer and bobcats get around while humans remain stuck in endless traffic.
The cost could balloon to $1.4 million if environmentalists can persuade the city to extend the wildlife path, which would be part of an overpass for vehicles and pedestrians, beyond the freeway…
a special path on the Skirball Center Drive bridge so coyote and opossum can commute across the Sepulveda Pass…
“In today’s dollars, doing this to improve the quality of open space and solve a serious wildlife issue is a drop in the bucket,” [biologist Paul Edelman of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy] said. “If we want healthy wild animals in Griffith Park and other open spaces, this is a must.”
...one side would have an extra 5 feet for wildlife.
Because traffic can make critters skittish, the bridge plan includes a 5-foot-high wall to block their view of the freeway and a 3-foot wall blocking their view of the bridge roadway.
...Sierra Club activist Rosemary White said the animal path needs to be extended over or under busy Sepulveda Boulevard or it would be “like signing a death warrant” for creatures coming off of the bridge. City officials said that would cost an additional $1 million, money they don’t have.
Plenty of wildlife crossings exist elsewhere, from toad tunnels in Davis, Calif.—which biologists say didn’t work…
“People need to understand how their transportation money is being completely misspent,” said state Sen. Tom McClintock
That’s what’s called a “Wildlife Connectivity Corridor” in planner-speak. It’s also called that in UN-speak and Wildlife Conservancy-speak. Same thing.
This is the eventual Plan:
*clicky* for larger, better quality
If you notice that there’s a whole lotta farmland gonna be taken over, don’t worry about your food supply. We won’t really need so much as the population will be stuffed into 800 sq. ft. hi-rises centered around walking-friendly town centres [yes, “centres"], bike paths and “smart” rail stations. Oh, yeah—and reduced to about 10%. Eventually 1%.
"As for folks who take over wildlands ...the lions and others were here first! If you don’t like them move back to the city where you belong."
The brave new Citizen of The World.
Got back from Beaverton, a Portland suburb, last night. While I was there I commented to a business owner--whose shop was getting entirely screwed by the construction--about the work going on for the railroad being built next to his business.
Nice people that they were, this man and wife mom-and-pop told me that their parking lot had been condemned to make the rail line possible.
Why? I asked, was a rail line being constructed? It seems the state has decided it needs to run a train between Beaverton and Wilsonville, a town south of Portland on the I-5 corridor. And that this train will run twice a day.
Property condemntation. (Yeah, they got a check. They were so happy to have a check instead of their parking lot.) Billions in construction costs. Operating costs? Are you serial?
So I checked Mapquest. Did you know that the trip from Beaverton to Wilsonville is 14.6 miles? And that you can drive there in 18 minutes? And, if you drive there and decide you want to go back to Beaverton you can get in your car and drive back? In 18 minutes.
Okay, there’s a Stupid Concession in the Oregon Legislature. How do I get a piece of the action?
Posted by OregonGuy on 10/14/07 at 09:11 AM
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