WISDOM OF WORKING TOGETHER

When will we place aside our individualism and work step by step together towards city building?

One must question for example whether our past captains of local transportation were working for our local good. Having just observed the return to the past with regard to the Kern County Transportation Foundation representation of community interests for “future” high-speed ”rail” may I still take up my cudgels and parry a blow against their attitudes toward roundabouts.

Of course the most famous Garces Circle would have gone if they had their way. They certainly never helped the circles design by offering alternative access to the business with existing curb cuts onto the circle.

However lets not fret the lack of action of the past. Rather lets examine what Burden offers as “physics of traffic movements to explain why a small roundabout can work more smoothly than a standard, four-way intersection: In a roundabout, there are only 8 "conflict points" where cars moving in different directions might potentially collide with one another; a four-way intersection has 32 conflict points.”

Another Burden example, several generations of firefighters have grown up thinking they can't get to fires on time except over 40-foot-wide, suburban-style streets. Burden's has a video of fire engines racing to a fire through 18-foot streets! And one has never heard of the local real estate development industry tendering a new code similar to that found in San Diego County for all new residences being fitted with sprinklers. Now is this wise or not?

The 2020 Vision forums of private decision-making has moved Bakerfolks away from the poisoned, argumentative, frustrating debates so common at most public hearings--where people almost always are merely responding to someone else's predetermined ideas for change.

Both the 2020 Vision as well as the recent Cities downtown Charrette and products still languish for continued leadership from City Councilors, City Officials with Private Businessmen. After offering such enticing smorgasbord of chances to join together in results that everyone felt personally responsible for the outcome, not getting on with it, is a shame.

We should not be satisfied with the wisdom or lack of it from our retired engineers, councilors or businessmen

We have to stop looking for experts and leaders, and listen to ourselves. However listening is not enough. The demand is for perseverance in action. Let’s continue to join together.

BY Graham Kaye-Eddie – Master Urban Designer.

Makabusi Inc. – Bakersfield – California

Email – makabusi@pacbell.net

Meeting to raise Arlington roundabout idea.

Roundabouts (circular intersections), new to Florida, are proposed for Jacksonville.

VIRGINIA'S ECONOMIC FUTURE UNCERTAIN, PRESIDENT TELLS GATHERING

"Runte said the university's parking situation should improve with the completion of a multi-level parking garage on Hampton Boulevard and the opening of the MAGLEV magnetic levitation transportation system linking the planned University Village development with the Powhatan Avenue residence halls. The MAGLEV is scheduled to begin operation this spring."

New, high-speed line along coast is turned down

By Michael Burge UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 15, 2001

An electrified high-speed rail for North Coastal San Diego County is out, but the California High Speed Rail Authority Board approved a plan yesterday to study the existing line with the aim of speeding the trains and improving service.

"We have an existing service (from Los Angeles to San Diego) that can be improved incrementally," said Dan Leavitt, deputy director for the California High Speed Rail Authority.

The rail authority board voted yesterday in Bakersfield to proceed with the $2.5 million environmental studies for the Los Angeles-to-San Diego corridor.

Gov. Gray Davis slashed funding for environmental studies for the proposed statewide high-speed rail system from this year's state budget, but the California Transportation Commission put up $2.5 million to study the coastal rail line linking Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego.

The Rail Authority also approved a plan yesterday to look into building a new rail line from Los Angeles to downtown San Diego via Ontario, Riverside, Temecula, Escondido and Mira Mesa.

However, Leavitt said, the authority lacks the money to proceed with the environmental reviews for that and other potential routes of the state's high-speed rail system.

The Rail Authority envisions an electrified high-speed rail that would span 700 miles and link San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and points between. The system would cost an estimated $25 billion and take 20 years to build.

The rail authority's board also decided yesterday to reject other technologies, such as magnetic levitation, or maglev, where trains run on a cushion of air created by magnets. The trains would run on steel tracks that are compatible with existing railways, Leavitt said.

The trains would run as fast as 200 mph in rural areas, Leavitt said, but slower in urban areas.

The rail authority rejected a new, electrified line along North San Diego County's coast, Leavitt said, because diesel trains could attain speeds of 100-125 mph if improvements were made to the existing line. He said that's as fast as electrified high-speed trains would travel along the same route, because they must slow down through populated areas.

The diesel-powered trains reach speeds up to 90 mph through San Diego County.

Improvements could include double-tracking the line south of Orange County, where 44 of the 60 miles of track are a single strand; trenching the rail line to eliminate street crossings; and moving the tracks off the environmentally fragile Del Mar bluffs, possibly by tunneling beneath Camino Del Mar. Straightening the route also could speed service.

The North County Transit District, which owns the tracks and runs the local Coaster commuter train, has long sought to add a second rail to the system.

Double-tracking has sparked opposition on the coast, particularly in Encinitas, which recently sued NCTD to prevent construction of a 1.7-mile passing track. The city contended that the transit agency needed to conduct an environmental study before it could build the project.

Encinitas has proposed to NCTD that it trench and cover all the track through town as part of its double-tracking project, but the transit district said it lacked the money to do that.