No Quick Fix for Alhambra Crowding
The demands by Alhambra residents for completion of the Long Beach Freeway, with shouts of “Quit dumping hundreds of thousands of cars in Alhambra,” reflect gross ignorance of the real problem, which is too many people.
Alhambra’s rapid growth, which has meant the replacement of neat, single-family houses with multiunit properties and a flood of humans crowding streets and schools (I lived there 20 years ago and remember how it was), is the reason residents feel pressured. Freeways are not the answer; they are obsolete before completion, and experts know freeways bring more people to an area. They do not maintain the status quo.
Immigration reform, population stabilization and zoning are the only answers to our increasingly unpleasant living conditions. The crush of people is felt by all of us, everywhere. It is time to become informed and involved in fixing the causes instead of demanding a magic quick fix.
BEATRICE J. SIMPSON
South Pasadena
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