It seems like overdevelopment issues never seem to go away for long in our lovely Rockridge.

The Editor

The Rockridge News

Oakland, CA

To the Editor:

It seems like overdevelopment issues never seem to go away for long in our lovely Rockridge. Thank you for publishing the thoughtful letter, "Please, No Fruitvale-style high density 'Transit Village' in Rockridge!" letter (The Rockridge News, September 2005). Your "Corrections" editorial reply absurdly suggested that somehow more development of apartment buildings along College Avenue would result "in more eyes on the street" that would somehow make us "safer."

Are mega-cities such as Hong Kong, Cairo and Mexico City safer because they have packed in many millions of new residents within their city limits in the last few years? I doubt it. People living in new apartment buildings in Rockridge would be mostly watching TV, surfing the web or playing video games or gasp, actually even reading, not looking out their window and watching out for our safaety in the street scene below.

Will adding more cars and SUVs of these hypothetical new residents not worsen our present traffic mess? Already, there is almost no parking available along College Avenue or along nearby residential streets.

Another letter writer asserted that some 1,600,000 more people would be "joining us" in the Bay Area in the next twenty years. Not if we don't build another 500,000 new housing units. They certainly aren't going to more here to sleep in the parks or in their vehicles...

We humans need to reduce our numbers by 90% to 99% to significantly lower our consumption of remaining energy resources and to protect the remaining natural environment. We certainly don't need to cram in hundreds of thousands of new residents into our already seriously overcrowded Bay Area.

Finally, an article on the Upper Broadway corridor absurdly proposes to the cut the present four traffic lanes down to two traffic lanes. Didn't the Rockridge News just trot out this same scheme for restricting traffic on Claremont Avenue a few months ago? That silly notion was shot down in flames by the Oakland City government.

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

5 September 2005

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