Past and Future, Coexisting

Progress is one of those concepts without a single, agreeable meaning--a fact made clear last week with the dedication of a wider, safer stretch of California 126. As the main route connecting Santa Clarita to Ventura, 126 was one of the busiest and most dangerous country roads in Southern California. In just five years--between 1992 and 1997--accidents along the highway injured 825 people and killed 49, earning it the descriptive nickname “Blood Alley.”

A fix was needed.

But progress came at a price.

It wasn’t so much the $60.6 million or the 15 years it took to widen 32 miles from two lanes to four. The project sliced through land once occupied by the Chumash Indians. Construction required digging up the graves of long-dead Chumash and reburying them. In addition to the traditional ribbon-cutting and the obligatory speeches, last week’s roadside dedication ceremony included the singing of Chumash songs and the burning of sage to bless the new highway.

Watching the remains of their ancestors dug up to make way for a freeway pained Chumash who attended the ceremony. But they said they understood the need for the work. Chumash spiritual leader Alan Salazar, who served as a consultant on the project, lives in Ventura. His children live in Bakersfield. “I use it as much as anyone,” Salazar said of the highway. Said Beverly Folks, whose ancestors were buried under the freeway’s path: “We know this project was needed for the safety of the people.”

That Caltrans worked closely with the Chumash on the project is a positive sign. In the past, large public works projects have been criticized for paving over the past in a rush to the future. Lost forever beneath dams and roads and skyscrapers are ancient stream beds, pieces of lost civilizations and reminders of what the world once was.

No one argues against safer roads or cleaner water, but the projects that deliver them can destroy fragments of history and tradition. Happily, that did not happen with the 126 expansion. The past was preserved and drivers get a safer road. The sensitivity displayed on the project offers a lesson in how progress can be viewed almost universally as welcome.