Views of Corridor as an Emblematic Move Forward

Re “Along the Open Road,” Dec. 8:

The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor can be called anything but a problem. It gives a huge amount of people a quicker and more peaceful way of traveling from place to place. The toll road allows people to drive to work without all of the hassle of busy traffic. Although there is a toll, the low price is well worth it.

The many reports about problems caused by this transportation unit shouldn’t be unexpected. Whenever something new comes into effect, there are always problems. It is ridiculous that speeding has been complained about. No matter where someone is driving, speeding is always going to be a problem. Then there are dilemmas that are just plain dumb. The reporting by an officer that someone made a U-turn on the road refers to a mistake that could only have been made without thinking. Even with these problems, overall the road itself is very productive and efficient.

BRIAN LIEBMAN

Laguna Niguel

* Upon reading the article by Andrew Tonkovich (“Road Will Take Its Toll on Natural World,” Orange County Voices, Nov. 24) with regard to the “so-called transportation corridor,” I had to wonder just how many children he may have brought into this world.

In that article he states, “But how, short of ignoring it, do we live with a road that, like most roads, will kill us?” He goes on to speak of hiking the El Morro Canyon and the many unique flora and fauna to be enjoyed along the way. He disparages the couples who enjoy the reduced travel time to their jobs (which reduces pollution), tells of how they can’t connect their lives to the cosmos in which the aforementioned flora and fauna (many threatened I’m sure) so precariously live. He speaks vaingloriously about us being “ . . . lost unless we see the ramifications in dividing our ecosystem, of isolating ourselves from our responsibility to connect, to see.”

Tonkovich goes on to state that the immediate answer is a moratorium “on building, paving, roads, construction, airports.”

To that I can only ask if he would like too live as the mountain men of the West in the 1800s. Would he like to see children raised in such a harsh environment? Because if babies are still being made at a rate greater than the death rate, they’ll have to live “in the natural world” if no buildings are available within which to reside.

If Tonkovich has not procreated then I stand wholeheartedly behind his notions of life within nature, cyclical in form, and connected to our ecosystem.

On the other hand, if he is polluting the world with more of the energy-grabbing, diaper-filling, water-consuming cancer that is the human population explosion, he needs much more desperately to look at who is “lost” and in “denial.” He should honestly envision the ultimate effect of 10 billion humans and work toward controlling their numbers because they are the ones clamoring for more pavement!

I look forward to hearing from Tonkovich on his new goal to make the world aware of the overpopulation that the roads carry. The roads are only a symptom; work on the disease.

KELLY LEWIS

Dana Point