Poll Sounds Alarm on Traffic, Growth Issues

Re “Growth Pains for O.C.,” editorial, Oct. 7:

Orange County’s experience has shown us roads that carry less than the projected capacity at higher-than-expected costs, including the cost to the environment because of the faulty drains the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies installed and the cost to the taxpayer to fix the pollution problems.

Residents concerned about the future would be wise to object to any further construction of toll roads. The proposed Foothill South toll road would destroy the last open space in southern Orange County, increase traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway, which would be unimprovable due to noncompete agreements, and pollute the clean water at some of the only runoff-free beaches in the county. UC Irvine’s poll is a wake-up call to county residents, who must realize that their concerns about growth and traffic are valid.

Julia Dewees

San Clemente

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The survey shows that two-thirds of Orange County residents believe that an expected 20-million increase in population would make this a less desirable place to live. A person is quoted in the article as saying, “You just can’t keep building houses and adding people.” This fallacy that “If you build it, they will come” is a root cause for the pressure we all are under as we try to come to grips with the natural growth in population.

The reporter did point to the fact that 82% surveyed incorrectly thought growth was due to people coming from outside of California. In fact, 77% of growth comes from the birth of children whose parents live here. Just how do people plan to stop adding people? The myth “If you build it, they will come” is countered by the fact “If you don’t build it, they will still be here.”

Just where will people born in the next 20 years live if the anti-housing forces get their way and simply stop all housing? We’re already seeing strong evidence of overcrowding in older neighborhoods where two and three families are starting to double up in single-family homes. This impacts schools, roads and municipal services. We must face these problems head-on and plan carefully.

Cynthia L. Cross

Huntington Beach

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The editorial described Orange County growth since the 1950s without ever mentioning immigration as a cause of overpopulation. This is your consistent pattern in years of comment on the results of high population problems (traffic gridlock, pollution, crowded, catastrophic school failure, etc.). We are the fourth-most-populated county in the nation, but your repeated mantra is “Continued growth is inevitable.” Not so.

You should be aware of the report “Sprawl in California,” available from NumbersUSA.com. The nonpartisan study, based on 20 years of census data, shows the California urban sprawl is 95% related to population growth.

Our growth is largely from decades of uncontrolled immigration. You adopt a gee-whiz-how-can-this-be attitude in the UC Irvine survey showing overpopulation as the major concern of residents. The 2000 census revealed millions of illegal entrants to the United States; your attitude was “Golly, I never knew that.” To the inevitability of death and taxes, add the politically correct blindness of Times editors.

Andre Kerr

Laguna Woods

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So Lynn Fishel, acting chief executive for the Orange County Building Assn., says, “We must accommodate the projected growth because we have good jobs and people want to live here.”

I guess that should not surprise us, coming from the industry that stands to make a lot of money from the growth. I’m sure the building industry would like nothing better than to erect houses, condos and industrial complexes on every square foot of Orange County land. Our citrus groves and strawberry fields are disappearing at an alarming rate. We do not have to accommodate the projected growth.

Russell Boyd

Anaheim