Letters to the Editor

Editor:

Regarding your Central Freeway editorial last month, granted there are many problems with changing the plan at this point, but I urge you to take a walk around the neighborhood where that freeway ramp is slated for reconstruction.

Talk to the neighbors about what it was like when the freeway was there; how people could not walk along Valencia Street because of the stench of urine beneath it. Talk to the owner of Woodward's Garden at Mission and Duboce who will have to close her restaurant if construction goes forward. Also notice how the neighborhood is coming back to life after 40 years in the shadows of the freeway. New businesses have opened and there is pedestrian activity where few would walk just a few months ago.

Yes, congestion in San Francisco is a problem. But will a two-block ramp really make any difference except to relegate a neighborhood to permanent desolation? It would be a shame to spend millions to rebuild the viaduct through that neighborhood when a surface connector to the freeway may work just as well or better.

Right now the Transportation Authority is studying options for the Market Street ramp. That study is due by the end of the year. Given what we build now will be around for the next 50 years, postponement of construction for just a couple of months to take another look seems prudent to me.

In the meantime, instead of vilifying people and organizations like the SF Bicycle Coalition that are seeking a balanced transportation system; instead of pitting motorists against bicyclists; instead of pitting the westside against the eastside, I think you would better serve this City by seeking ways we can work together to develop creative, comprehensive long-term solutions to our transportation problems.

Robin F. Levitt