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Editor: 

It is time for us to stop hiding behind fears about traffic as a justification for blocking development.  

The main reason why we have traffic is people are forced to commute to Berkeley as the housing stock has increased by only 715 while the number of jobs increased by 18,000. If we are going to block denser development in appropriate areas like University, San Pablo and Sacramento and at Ashby and North Berkeley Bart stations then we have no business complaining about traffic. There is constant talk about encouraging commuters to Berkeley to use public transportation, but what about encouraging residents of Berkeley to do the same? How will we address internal commuting? What are we doing to encourage residents of Berkeley to get out of their cars when running their errands or dropping off/picking up their kids from school? Are we going to address the problem of congestion by building the 17,000 needed units, or are we going to protect the interests of the 10% of Berkeley residents who can afford to purchase a home in Berkeley? As one of the 90% of Bay, I am willing to sacrifice the bay views of pseudo progressives. 

Jeffrey Schilling 

Berkeley