AQMD Headquarters: Critiquing the Critique
The “critique” on the AQMD’s new headquarters (Smog Complex (May 31) assures us that “every effort has been made to make sure that the AQMD headquarters lives up to its own environmental agendas.” High on AQMD’s agenda have been Congestion Management Programs to coerce commuters from their cars to buses, trains, and even bicycles.
It is therefore ironic that the agency has chosen to locate at the junction of two freeways, far from any public transportation nodes. I doubt that many commuters could pedal up the daunting hill to the new headquarters. Wouldn’t a location downtown, for example, near the Metrolink, Blue Line and Red Lines have been more energy conserving and non-polluting by giving AQMD’s 850 employees the opportunity to utilize trains and buses? Instead the AQMD acts as a magnet for automobile traffic by employees and its many visitors to an already smoggy area.
Mr. Whiteson asserts that electric heating “eliminates the pollution of gas-fired boilers”. Surely, there is pollution being created somewhere, unless the building’s electricity is coming from San Onofre.
EUGENE F. PAGE, III
La Habra Heights
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