We neglected beach access to the Blue Line trolley thirty years ago.
There is presently much discussion and much lamenting over the Blue Line trolley’s minimal access to San Diego’s beach communities. As a local planning board member thirty years ago and as recently as five years ago, my pleas in rectifying this problem went unheard and ignored. Common sense did not prevail in America’s Finest City where community leaders were too enthralled with their self-importance and cock sure attitudes. From the English philosopher Bertrand Russell, as he said, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
Four years ago, I ran for San Diego City Council to represent the beach areas and parts of Clairemont. I frequently travelled to my home in France and brought back to San Diego the template used for the beach tram in Le Havre. Nobody cared, nobody listened, and I was shunned as a nobody and worse. This French tram makes our trolley look obsolete.
Traffic is at a breaking point at one of the busiest intersections in San Diego County. It’s getting worse. All this vehicular dysfunction could have been avoided by installing a trendy tram. Americans are attracted to trend. It would have been a viable solution. Sandag said they could not afford it, the City said likewise and the planners followed their nose. Now, we are amid a transportation catastrophe.
Being an endurance athlete and walking everywhere in San Diego adds insult to injury in seeing all the bloated cars. Again, nobody listens. Getting San Diegans’ out of their cars will entail a sea change of social thought. We are not the French where public transportation is seen as acceptable to all classes of people. We are too proud in San Diego to sit next to a stranger on a smelly bus.
Our leaders ought to lead by example, but they don’t because its beneath them. The voters basically vote on perception of a winning candidate. It’s like horse racing. Nobody wants to bet on a loser so the best candidate with the best vision rarely succeeds. This is where we are now. We have a councilmember who essentially is absent without leave. There is no vision. This whole fiasco reminds me of the Wizard of Id. The Wizard was so demanding in his kingdom that all his subjects feared his wrath. One day the Wizard asked his bakers which one had made his cake. Not a word was heard as they all cowered in fear. Then the wizard said, “This was the best cake I ever tasted.” Immediately all the bakers raised their hands as baking the cake.
This is the state of our San Diego government and electoral process. Daniel Smiechowski Bay Ho/Le Havre, France