Page One

Editor: 

In his open letter to Mayor Dean, Sedge Thomson wittily (he seems to think) sets forth all sorts of things about how the city dumps overwhelming traffic burdens into his part of town. In his view, the Willard and Bateman neighborhoods are being “trod upon,” and that nefarious machinations at the Planning and Traffic Departments will cause conditions to worsen further. He also depicts “the lesser Elmwood” as being absolutely choked to death by a never ending stream of speeding cars and their exhaust fumes. 

I invite Mr. Thomson to back up his scenarios of disproportionate traffic burdens in the two aforementioned neighborhoods with some traffic count figures. I doubt that he’ll be able to elicit much sympathy from the people who live on Ashby/Tunnel, the Warring/Belrose Corridor (both with over 20,000 cars per day!), or other basically residential Berkeley streets that have the misfortune of serving as major thoroughfares. 

Doris Willingham 

Berkeley