September 17, 2007 was the first day of the Big Dig. The People's Tunnels are now officially under construction, as Caltrans begins scooping out twin bores from the south side of San Pedro Mountain to the north. On the Pacifica side of the three-year, $330 million project, the giant bridge rising above Shamrock Ranch will bring Highway 1 traffic up to the tunnel level. At yesterday's groundbreaking ceremony, Congressman Tom Lantos honored tunnel visionary Lennie Roberts, calling the Devil's Slide solution "the people's tunnels." All along, this has been the moniker suggested by our own tunnel visionary, Pacifican Mitch Reid, who helped lead the fight against the old mountain-busting freeway bypass, and then the fight for the mountain-saving tunnels alternative.
Hey, if Tom Lantos wanted the tunnels to be called "the people's tunnels" (sounds 1950s Soviet to me) that is the right way to honor the guy. Such a moniker will, of course, be as offensive to right-wingers as "Homeland Security" (sounds more 1930s Nazi than any kind of American to me) was to the lefties.
Posted by: Dan Underhill | July 07, 2008 at 06:33 PM
I love the photo. Good luck, fella. Apparently this isn't a Caltrans job, after all. Otherwise, there'd be 6 other guys leaning up against shovels, shooting the shite.
Posted by: Jim Currie | September 18, 2007 at 08:04 PM