Cole v. Cote Round Last Observations

A few additional mostly lexigraphical observations.

> No love for tunnels
> By Rick Cole
>
> September 24, 2005
> >
> > DECADES AGO, a gadfly candidate for Los Angeles mayor promoted a quick fix
> > for smog: Drill tunnels through the San Gabriel Mountains and use giant
> > fans to blow the dirty air out the other side.

Guilt by association. BTW the concept is still a good idea. A nuclear
plant in Sunland can be designed to focus cooling tower convection
rather than using the traditionally dissapating configurations. Basin
air quality would measurably improve in addition to providing badly
needed power. By my calculations the savings in air quality penalties
would make this idea better than free.

> > Amazingly, a similar scheme is
> > currently getting serious consideration and not from crackpots. This time,
> > three massive freeway tunneling projects are being studied by regional
> > transportation leaders.

Amazing is how Mr. Cole switches from air quality to congestion without
the intellectually honest admission that congestion causes pollution.
...
> > Each of the tunnel options purports to fill gaps in the region's freeway
> > network.

"Purports?" Purports? What an incredibly ill used word. There are gaps
and these tunnels fill gaps. No honest advocate of rational
transportation policy would ever stoop so low. Calling into question
the reality is no way to make the fantasy look better.

> > The city of Palmdale is pushing a highway hole through the San
> > Gabriels to Glendale.

City of Palmdale == sprawl, bad, roads cabal. Nope, it isn't the Cit of
Palmdale that is pushing for the tunnel. In FAct the tunnel is
ultimately a bad thing for the Antelope Valley as increased connectivity
to LA would slow its' burgeoning independence as a freestanding urban
area. It turns out that "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los
Angeles de Poriuncula" owns a lot of land up there and wants to build an
international airport up there. Los Angeles wins, Palmdale gets the
shaft.

...
> > And at least six Orange County cities back a tunnel under the Cleveland
> > National Forest to ease commuter trips to cheaper housing in Riverside
> > County.

Funny thing is as City manager of San Buenaventura Mr. Cole is proposing
several radical measures for the purposes of reducing commute trips and
increasing affordable housing. Sauce, goose, gander. The difference
being that the OC cities have evidence that their ideas have merit.

> >
> > The fallacy of these boondoggles isn't that the stupendous environmental,
> > engineering and financial obstacles will doom them. The problem is that
> > they are colossally bad ideas.

Appeal to emotion. After all if the the environment, engineering and
financing are off the table what's left? Classic attempt at preemption.
Turns out that there are very, very few environmental issues with these
projects. One of the reasons they are so attractive.

> > Let's pretend for a moment that the federal pork fairy were to grant the
> > fervent wishes of the tunnel boosters.

Ohhhh, there's a wish he probably will regret. Right now all we put in
tunnels is transit. Poof, back to the reality Mr. Cole presumes; let's
make it real by cancelling all underground transit spending. Be careful
what you wish for. Especially when you are wont to conflate
transportation and transit.

...
> > There's one catch, however. In the past, sprawl just undermined our
> > environment and quality of life.

Sprawl, the "N-word" of public planning policy.

...
> > Experts dispute how high and how quickly gas prices
> > will rise. But no one questions that they will increase.

In the last week since Mr. Cole scribbled this sceed prices have gone
down. Next week they will probably go up but only the truly godlike can
say with certainty. Classic attempt to preach from a self assumed
position of superior knowledge.

...
> > Southern California needs to grow up not out.

Soundbite ideology. Note that the most recent high rise project
anywhere near Ventura County was vehemently opposed personally by Mr.
Cole. Its' failing? It was 500 feet over the Sanbuenaventura city
limits in Oxnard.