Park and Ride lot is deserving of support
01/21/2007
Our not-so-secret hope is that technology will save us from choking on the air scarring lungs young and old in the fast-growing San Joaquin Valley.
This is the gamble many of us take for refusing to give up the comfort and convenience of driving by ourselves. So, we wait and cross our fingers that the Technology Wheel of Fortune will bring home a winner. It could be ethanol, biodiesel, hydrogen fuel cells or a fantastic fuel-sipping hybrid that goes zero to 60 faster than you can take that first sip of Starbucks.
Meanwhile, we have to deal with asthma, heart disease and early death. And that requires a real effort to improve the air while the Valley grows 65% faster than the state average. The efforts can be both big and small.
For example, a Valley delegation backed by Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein seeks $100 million annual funding to clean up the counties that make up the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. The district is getting just $500,000 this year, says Seyed Sadredin, the district's executive director.
In addition, the district is lobbying for a $1 billion cut from Proposition 1B, the $19.9 billion state transportation bond passed in November. Justification for the $1 billion: The Valley is responsible for 28% of the state's vehicle miles. Moreover, 12% of the Valley's vehicle miles are rung up by out-of-area trucks zipping to destinations elsewhere, Sadredin says.
Talk about a bad deal. Big rigs belch their fumes, and all the Valley gets is a little money in the till when drivers stop for fuel and a burger.
Fresno City Council Member Larry Westerlund has a simple idea that doesn't involve technology. He wants the city to partner with the air district and Union Pacific Railroad on a Park and Ride lot at Herndon Avenue and Golden State Boulevard. If the parties agree, Fresno would get its first Park and Ride — an achievement of better-late-than-never distinction.
Before you dismiss the Park and Ride, which would cost $400,000, and predict no one will use it, you should know people already are parking on a dirt shoulder and car-pooling from there. One of them is Richard Westerlund, father of the council member. Westerlund is still working at 71 in sales and car-pools up and down the Valley on Highway 99. He believes more people would ride together if they could park in a paved lot and not have to tiptoe through mud and water after rain.
"It's a great way to help the ecology," Richard Westerlund says. Not to mention your wallet.
Sadredin says adding Park and Rides also would get people thinking about how they can help the air.
"It's important for people to use alternative transportation — anything that isn't a single person driving a car a long stretch of miles," he says.
Westerlund the council member got the idea from his father. Both deserve our thanks for suggesting a path through the smog.
The City Council should thank them as well Tuesday by approving Westerlund's proposal and investigating other Park and Ride sites.