COASTSIDE DEBATES MAJOR HIGHWAY CHANGES IN MOSS BEACH

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video: open hearing

Comments

[Carl May]

This was a sales job by the Connect the Coastside pushers. From the beginning years ago, this particular effort by mostly non-coastside, developer-serving political and financial interests was couched in often inaccurate and real-world-ignorant language acting as a laxative to ease its passage through the process. That continued at this presentation with a continuing inaccurate characterization of the current highway, severely limited options for future highway design that were presented, the severely limited and narrowly channeled feedback from the public accepted, and the glossing over of many important associated factors that were not included or kicked down the road with empty assurances that they would be handled when their time comes (a time at which, we know from experience, it will be stated it is too late to make any changes).

If the many long-time residents from Moss Beach at this promotion were polled on what was presented with all the associated considerations included, their overwhelming vote would have been “none of the above.” Relative newcomers might be swayed by the political spin and highway design theory of outside consultants, but Midcoasters who have lived the highway situation in Moss Beach for many years know they are being steamrolled.

[Carl May]

"Quiet coastal towns" have no juice in this matter and over-the-hill urban environmentalists and a minority of coastside urban wishers who try to give the impression they care about our local communities and surrounding environment are no help.

[Jay Bird]

Pacifica successfully fought off a phony freeway down Sharp Park Road with a raised cloverleaf more than once.

Will this freeway soul-sucking LosAngelesification be permitted by quiet coastal towns this time?

[Carl May]

Not only San Mateo County. A multi-lane highway has been a Caltrans dream and goal since the late 1950s when an Eisenhower-era interstate-style freeway system for the Bay Area included a coastal freeway from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. The two 2-lane tunnels under Devil's Slide instead of one two-lane tunnel are but one of the continuing, long-term, multi-lane efforts to get done in segments what could not be done all at once. (The Coastal Act requires two lanes in scenic rural areas. But this requirement was circumvented with semantics that got around the physical reality of the tunnels, just as the Devil's Slide Bypass would have been called a two-lane highway while fully built for five to six freeway lanes and initially paved for three to four lanes without one inch of truly two-lane road.) The county and Caltrans (not to forget state government) have long been in cahoots in their relentless quest to further de-ruralize, overpopulate, and pave the coastside.

[Jay Bird]

San Mateo County buildout crowd will try to widen Highway 1, turn it into a freeway -- the crowding and traffic destroy coastal quality of life.

Show up, speak up, save the coast!

[Carl May]

Though far from ideal, Moss Beach and Montara currently have the best stretch of Highway 1 on the Midcoast and Half Moon Bay. Of all the towns, this is where traffic flows most freely and where fewer accidents occur.

This long, multi-year highway study and, eventually, set of projects has been and continues to be foisted on us by over-the-hill San Mateo County politicians, staff, and cohorts (including a few local "tools") in service of pet political projects like Big Wave and Cypress Point and more general additional overdevelopment that our already overloaded land, resources, and infrastructure (water, sewer, runoff, parks, etc.) cannot accommodate. The urban-style designs and infrastructure proposed will be entirely out of character with our still semirural communities. The negative impacts on our neighborhoods and communities on both sides of the highway are either trivialized or ignored. Notably, congestion will be INCREASED, not reduced, by all of the intersection developments and artificial roadside "improvements" being offered. Truly safer crossings of the highway are not among the design considerations. All detailed considerations are being kicked down the road in the erroneous notion that the public will have a voice in each individual development (such as the intersection treatments) as they come up in the future (duh, like we haven't seen this kind of misdirection in the past hereabouts).

Though regularly presented and discussed at Midcoast Community Council (MCC) meetings, this will be the first meeting for the public on this ongoing highway-centered boondoggle in years. We need a strong, vocal local turnout at this open house to let our current county politicians and staff know of our objections to yet another heavy-footed stomping on our lives here on the coastside. Yes, there are a number of angles relevant to Pacificans, including the increased commute-hours traffic due to the increased Midcoast population being fostered by the public infrastructure projects.