Public Comment

Posted Mon., April 28 

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BRT, WE ARE TOLD, IS A ‘DONE DEAL’ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In a recent letter Alan Tobey argues “BRT was approved by the City Council in 2001. Top bureaucrats, advocacy organizations and city policy endorse it. It’s a done deal. Stop raising questions.” 

In 2001 there was no design. I am sure everyone imagined something better than the rather crude scheme which AC began circulating in 2005. City “policy,” co-authored by outspoken automobile-denying zealot citizens, endorses BRT sight-unseen. BRT is not a concept that may be endorsed in principle, like recycling. It is infrastructure. Its design is a vital consideration. 

In 2005 AC Transit energetically showed early plans to whoever would pay attention. Concerned about its potentially devastating impact on the downtown pedestrian environment, a local landscape architect sat down with tracing paper, scale and plans of downtown. In a few hours he produced several alternate deployment schemes for downtown. These showed exciting possibilities, none of embodied are contained in AC’s plans. They also demonstrated that AC’s “design” is nothing more than a concept diagram. This was the origin of my conviction and my activism on this issue. At the time, Berkeley city officials admitted off the record, “yeah, the city needs to do that stuff.” But the city hasn’t. 

And if we say “whatever you wish” to these plans as Mr. Tobey urges—giving cover to the City Council to “approve”—there is no incentive for the city to do it. 

AC Transit planners are engineers, not designers, as they frankly declare. Moreover, AC Transit has never attempted the design of a mass transit system, with dedicated lanes, stations and platforms. AC Transit is not a landscape architecture firm. It has no smarts about preserving viability of local business. Its computer models to predict what will happen to the cars cannot fully predict human adaptive behavior. AC Transit needs help with this. And the help has to originate in each locale even though the cities don’t have AC Transit’s design budget. AC Transit can’t help but thrash round clumsily in our downtown and on our Telegraph Avenue. It needs to partner with design consultants who are working for and accountable to Berkeley. In collaboration, AC Transit and our people need to author schemes which preserve the downtown pedestrian environment, avoids killing off Telegraph and Shattuck Avenue businesses, and adequately provides for car and bicycle traffic on Telegraph. Omitting this vital step is unthinkable. 

Do you think it will happen if we are silent, giving it premature endorsement? 

Bruce Wicinas 

Berkeley citizen 

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LET’S NOT BE FOOLED BY RAPID BUS PLUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Opponents of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) for Telegraph Avenue and downtown have been proposing an alternative they claim to be “just as good, cheaper, and without the negative impacts” of BRT. They call this “Rapid Bus Plus,” and propose it as an improvement on today’s “regular” 1R Rapid Bus service through the addition of a proof-of-payment (POP) ticketing system and “bulbouts” (sidewalk widenings) at the stops. “Rapid Bus Plus” stops short of BRT by omitting dedicated lanes for the service, a feature which is critical to creating a transit system that can compete with the private automobile in speed, efficiency, and reliability. 

The term “Rapid Bus Plus” is an ad hoc term created by Berkeleyans for Better Transit Options (BBTOP), a citizens’ group opposed to BRT with dedicated lanes on Telegraph Avenue. A Google search for “Rapid Bus Plus” comes up with links to Berkeley or the AC Transit BRT proposal - and nothing else. 

This confirms the truth: Rapid Bus Plus is a diversion created by BRT opponents and is never among the well-studied options considered by transit professionals. In contrast, more than 25 US cities have already implemented or are in the process of implementing a full BRT project that includes dedicated lanes to keep buses from being entangled in ordinary traffic. 

If any city anywhere is implementing Rapid Bus Plus, we would welcome the information so that we can all learn from the experience. 

Len Conly 

Friends of BRT 

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A PROPOSAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I think the proposal to generate additional revenue by charging for parking at meters in downtown Berkeley during nighttime hours is very short sighted. First of all, this will be the death knoll for many downtown businesses, including restaurants and movie theaters. It is already difficult to park in downtown Berkeley. I, as well as many people I know, avoid this area “like a plague", whenever possible, when there are so many other options for restaurant dining and movie viewing, that have free and accessible parking nearby. This is also a negative way to generate revenue. It will make people angry, will reduce the nighttime visitors to this area, and have a negative impact on businesses that stay open during evening hours. 

Instead, why not put a positive spin on gaining additional income by making it fun as well as profitable? For example, how about creating the first ever annual Traffic Circle Design Contest? The city could ask local businesses to donate prizes such as a dinner for two, or a pair of movie tickets to downtown businesses. 

Prizes could run the gamut from:  

1. Best Dressed Traffic Circle. 

2. Most Creative Design. 

3. Most Imaginative. 

4. Most Colorful. 

5. Greenest. 

6. And so forth. 

You could charge individuals and block associations, let’s say, $10, per category, per submission, and encourage them to submit as many ideas and or existing designs or photos for each category to be included in the competition. 

This will be followed up by the judging of the ideas and designs and then the first ever, Traffic Circle Annual Awards Ceremony, to be held in MLK Park, on a Saturday afternoon, next to the Farmers Market. 

Now, wouldn’t that be fun? and generate revenue? and make people excited about donating money to the City of Berkeley? 

Chandra Hauptman 

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IN DEFENSE OF BICYCLE TRAILERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What a difference in perspective! Amanda Duisman (Letters, April 22) wants to ban bicycle trailers because she thinks they are unsafe for small children, while I bought one, in part, because I thought it would be safer than carrying a child on the back of my bike. I will not try to convince her of this here, as I am afraid she will then just want to ban both. 

If we ban activities for people’s own good, where do we stop? Baby strollers? Kids on bikes? Pedestrians? 

Do we ignore social justice? Not everybody owns a car. What about the health aspects of exercise? Driven everywhere, our kids become obese, and are prone to early onset diabetes and heart problems. 

Most motor vehicles have safety systems, but nonetheless, 87 percent of people killed by motor vehicles are occupants of the vehicles themselves, while less than 2 percent of those killed are cyclists. Increasing the number of cyclists (or even pedestrians) by a little bit will increase their exposure to cars, but if you increase their number enough to significantly decrease vehicular traffic it should actually reduce the total number of fatalities. 

I have saved the perhaps most significant issue for last. Motor vehicles are major contributors to global climate change. What value is the supposed safety of transporting our children by car if by doing so we destroy the future for their children? 

Robert Clear 

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ALSO IN DEFENSE OF BICYCLE TRAILERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dear me. Let me see if I get this straight. Having a child wear a helmet, or putting a flag on your bike trailer, proves that you know it’s dangerous to take the kid with you. By this logic, shouldn’t those of us who used child seats before the law required them have kept our children out of cars altogether, since we evidently were aware of the risks? One in 100 Americans dies in an auto accident, but no one suggests that children should not be transported in cars. 

What the odds are for a child in a bike cart is hard to determine, since there aren’t that many out there as yet, but I imagine parents bike more carefully than most people, which is to say that they probably have fewer accidents than average. (Could be that’s also true of parents driving cars.) 

Like the writers, I am old enough to be a grandmother, though so far not lucky enough. Over 25 years ago, I was hauling my kids by bicycle cart, and we all lived to tell the tale. They said they enjoyed riding with me on errands and to daycare. If they were traumatized, it’s had an odd result—both are bike riders, and our daughter is a part owner of Pedal Express, Berkeley’s bike messenger service. Should she ever bless us with a descendent, I hope and expect she’ll bring it to visit us by bicycle. 

I don’t mean to minimize the danger to children from cars. But that danger peaks when, inevitably, they get old enough to walk, bike, and eventually drive, without adult supervision. The way to improve their odds is to crack down on speeding, red light running, and violations of pedestrian right-of-way. 

Ann Sieck 

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STILL MORE IN DEFENSE OF BICYCLE TRAILERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just wanted to comment on the child safety concerns raised about bicycle trailers. A previous letter objected to these trailers and favored child seats that can be mounted on the bicycle. While there isn’t a perfect, 100 percent risk-proof way to carry a child with you on a bicycle ride (any more than in a car), I believe that under most circumstances a trailer is safer than a mounted seat. 

When a seat is mounted on the bike, it affects the center of gravity of the bike, and makes it less stable and more difficult to control. If the worst happens, and the bicycle falls over, the child will go with it—and have no protection from the road, or other obstacles he or she might fall into. 

A trailer, on the other hand, is stable independent of the bike. It doesn’t affect the center of gravity, and minimally affects the handling of the bike. If the bicycle and rider fall over, many trailers will not—they are attached by a pivot specifically to guard against flipping over. They also have a seatbelt and a structure that protect the child if anything does hit the trailer. 

For this reason, I have felt comfortable taking my four-month-old with us on bicycle outings in his trailer. Because he’s so little, to give him added protection and to make sure his head doesn’t get jostled too much, I have used his car seat inside the trailer. We don’t take him into heavy traffic: most of Shattuck Avenue is definitely not a very safe route for bikes with kid trailers, just because there are so many cars—but there are lots of “bicycle boulevards” and less-crowded roads to use instead. 

Bad things can happen to kids, no doubt about that, but he’s safer in that trailer than he would be out of it. 

Gabriella Raymond 

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CHANGE IN FORMAT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The newspaper business is failing as I well know from personal experience. I had a management position at the largest chain around here that ended a year ago. Frankly, the great majority of newspapers do not deserve to survive. They all take their editorial cues from the gray New York Times, now in serious trouble itself. You can predict their views on everything from guns to climate change with your eyes closed. 

Which brings me to the Berkeley Daily Planet’s alleged reason for cutting back. Let’s drop all the greening nonsense. By that logic no one should ever publish anything because that would save all the trees. No one should ever use any resources because that is interfering with our “limited” supply ! That these resources sat unused for thousands of years while people were starving to death goes unmentioned. The liberal left has become a giant nanny scold crying “Doom !” all the time. Every pleasure from drinking to smoking to hunting to driving is now the enemy and we should all wear a hairshirt in perpetuity for “nature” and the backward regions of the planet. 

I bet the Daily Planet is cutting back for financial reasons. Now if anyone can verify the rumor that KPFA is cutting airtime 50 percent to lessen airwaves pollution that would be nice. 

Michael P. Hardesty 

Oakland 

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APPLE MOTH SPRAYING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Now that the powers that be (a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge and the Schwarzenegger Administration) have agreed to temporarily suspend the threatened aerial spraying of pesticide gas over much of the Bay Area in an attempt to sexually harass a small brown moth, we need to force a complete and final end to this insane plan. 

The incompetent Bush administration has been wrong about almost everything in the last seven years; why 

does anyone in their right mind possibly think that they would be right about a supposed big threat posed by the presence of the light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana)? 

American apple growers originally lobbied the federal United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to classify this small moth as a big threat to their crops as a way of cutting down on competition from New Zealand apple exporters. It worked for a few years, and forced the New Zealand apple growers to undertake unnecessary and toxic sprayings of their orchards. This moth has been living in New Zealand for about a century and is considered to be a minor agricultural pest there. 

This moth, a native to Australia, has also lived in New Caledonia, Hawai’i and England for many years. These areas are still green and agriculturally productive. The residents and the farmers of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Hawai’i and England have managed to co-exist with this moth without having to resort to the aerial pesticide 

spraying of entire cities and towns. 

But now that this moth has been discovered in California, other countries can and are demanding that this state take steps to eliminate the presence of the moth. So the discovered presence of the Apple Moth is a threat to the potential export profits of American apple growing corporations, it is not an actual threat to the growing of the apples. Hoisted on their own petard! Just agribusiness corporate greed coming home to roost, so to speak. 

A quick search of the Internet will reveal that the supposed presence of agricultural insect pests is the basis of many ongoing trade battles and trade wars between different food-producing countries and food-consuming nations. This brown apple moth brouhaha is just the latest conflict to appear recently in our California news media as a major story. Our apple farmers and our state and federal agricultural experts need to consult with apple growers in New Zealand and Australia and find some low-key biological controls as a remedy for the presence of the moth. The USDA should rejoin the real world and immediately downgrade this bogus threat level posed by the presence of this moth. 

Please write letters to your City Council representatives, your County supervisors, your State representatives and your Federal representatives and tell them “no” to any aerial spraying of pesticides or any other poison gases in the Bay Area. 

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

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FRANKENNEGGER HAIKU 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

i shall close your schools; 

then you invent more machines 

to teach your children. 

Arnie Passman 

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ABU GHRAIB: FOUR YEARS AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It has been four years since we learned of the torture at Abu Ghraib and our government still has not acted to restore America’s honor by unequivocally banning torture and other forms of cruel treatment. 

I encourage anyone who does not believe that the Bush Administration did not orchestrate the torture techniques to read Philip Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect.” Zimbardo did an experiment back in 1971 with Stanford students that emulated what happens when they are divided up into prisoners and guards and given very little guidance. The result: what he calls a “ ‘perfect storm’ which leads good people to engage in evil actions.” 

Zimbardo testified at one of the court-martials that it is the system of vague rules, implicit approval and assured immunity that led to the abuse of prisoners. (His testimony was later dismissed.) While the actual acts were perpetrated by individuals, the authority structure was intentionally designed to allow such abuses to occur. The resulting abuse has been not only harmful to the prisoners but also the guards has led us “moral” outsiders to erroneously characterize them both as “monsters.” 

This complete disregard for a person’s humanity, that of the prisoner as well as our troops acting as guards, goes against treating humans with dignity and respect. We have flouted the Geneva Convention to the detriment of our own captured troops, but also to our souls as human beings. 

Mr. Bush has all but left the car on cruise control as he speeds his way to whatever is next for him after his term is over. It’s up to the next president to restore America’s moral authority. The next president must swear off the use of torture by any and all U.S. agencies, order a complete investigation into this system of abuse, and establish clear guidelines of interrogation. We will not only be attempting to restore the humanity of those we incarcerate, but also our own humanity. 

Both are at stake. 

Evans McGowan 

San Anselmo 

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RODEOS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Red Bluff Round-up dodged a serious bullet on April 20 when a rodeo bull, “Blue Steel,” jumped an eight-foot fence into the audience, injuring six people in the process, three of them children. It’s a miracle that no one was killed. The story made the national news. 

But simply to say that this was an unavoidable “fluke” begs the issue, and rodeos around the country are setting themselves up for tragedies and lawsuits if they don’t do something to prevent such occurrences in the future. I’m reminded of the recent incident at the San Francisco Zoo when a tiger jumped a 15-foot moat and wall, and killed a zoo visitor. That, too, could be considered a “fluke,” yet zoos around the country, indeed world, immediately took a hard look at their public and animal safety policies and requirements, and changes were made. 

The rodeo community needs to follow suit for the protection of both the fans and the animals. Is there any sort of national standard for rodeo arenas? Should there be a 9-foot minimum fence requirement at all arenas, for instance? It’s time for various state legislatures to take a look at this issue. 

All California legislators may be written in care of the State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814. 

Eric Mills, coordinator 

Action for Animals 

Oakland 

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SOFT TOUCH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My advice to Dorothy Snodgrass (Letters, April 25): Don’t be a soft touch. I also hate finding more address labels in my mail. My response: I refuse to give money to any organization that sends me labels or offers any kind of “free prize” in return for my donation. And I tell them so by sending a note in their return envelope, pointing out that they’re wasting money that should be going to their cause, and further that the adhesive labels cannot be recycled like other paper. 

Jerry Landis 

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MEDIA AND THE ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am really angry at both the Democratic and Republican parties for allowing the media to select our presidential candidates. Where is their spine? How dare they allow the media to decide who to include and exclude in the debates, and to set up the questions and the formats! The parties should have acted to prevent this. And I think this is not the first election that this has happened—the media chose Kerry last time. 

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe that there are a lot of corrupt people out there who will to anything to attain power. They will corrupt our voting machines (Ohio), corrupt voter lists (Florida), corrupt the caucus process (Iowa), and corrupt media coverage (think Edwards and Kucinich).  

Who is protecting the democratic process? Maybe we need foreign observers like other countries? A U.N. presence? We certainly live in strange times. 

Margot Smith 

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HEAL THE ANGER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wonder if we can find a way to heal the anger of students who scrawl graffiti on school walls. I know the students feel frustrated. Some of the frustration comes from the discipline necessary in any place of education. But some of the frustration comes from a curriculum which is not adapted for low achievers. The curriculum for low achievers should develop those skills which can make students economically self-sufficient. At the same time teachers and counselors should be encouraged to identify non-academic talents of students which are worthy of praise. 

We may need to find new learning streams for low achievers. So that their frustration doesn’t keep mounting. 

Romila Khanna 

Albany