A 710 Freeway tunnel is a waste of money

Re “The light at the end is a tunnel,” Opinion, June 20

Robert W. Poole Jr.’s piece contains tenuous engineering arguments. For one, the San Francisco Bay crossing Poole refers to is not a tunnel but the BART Transbay Tube. Prefabricated tubes are very suitable for entrenched underwater crossings. Although the tube was shaken in 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake lasted only 15 seconds, and the epicenter was more than 50 miles from San Francisco.

Further, although Poole points out that many long tunnels have been built elsewhere, the key issue is in fact size and width. All of the structures Poole refers to are narrow tunnels. The 710 tunnels would be four-plus lanes apiece. The money for the 710 project would be better spent improving public transportation and upgrading the current system we already have.

IAN PAUL NICHOLSON

Thousand Oaks

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I’m beginning to think that “traffic engineer” is an oxymoron, like “Army intelligence.” Have any of these engineers been on the 210 Freeway lately? If you think the 10 Freeway is congested, try the 210 eastbound in the afternoon. And they want to dump the thousands of cars from the 710 Freeway onto the 210 without any plan for how the already jampacked 210 is supposed to absorb the additional traffic?

This is so typical of Caltrans -- create a problem, not a solution.

MARTIN J. WATERMAN

Pasadena