Comments by Carl May

Measure S loses with 61% of the vote

With wealth ever more concentrated in a few percent at the upper end, average income is a poor measure of anything for an election like this. To get more of a handle on a typical voter in a population, median income of citizens is a better number. And if one is going to compare to other places, cost of living needs to be factored in. It is entirely possible for a large majority of people to be slipping backward in terms of adjusted income and quality of life measures at the same time the average income of the same population is going up.

But I suspect other, more immediate conditions played more of a role in the strange slippage of the percentage in favor of the parcel tax for CUSD. One will never figure it out with speculation, but a well-constructed survey would probably provide the answers if anyone is interested in having them.

Carl May

Big Wave project gets its first public hearing

Disking up to the edge of “wetlands” is usually done in a calculated manner to create an edge effect. The edge of a wetland, in actuality, usually extends some feet outward from the larger, more obvious plants like rushes, cattails, and willows. The turned-over soil is subjected to drying at a greater rate, and more air than is natural circulates into the edge of the remaining stands of plants, changing physical conditions and drying them as well. As a consequence, the size of the wetland is reduced.

This is at least the second time a putative developer has cleared into the edge of wetlands on this property, the previous time of which I am aware being when it was done as part of an office park development J.L. Johnson was promoting. Ralph Osterling was his environmental consultant on the project at the time.

Damage to wetlands of this sort is reportable to the Coastal Commission.

Carl May

Big Wave project hearing tonight in El Granada

Another go-around for an attempt to put an office park on this property. Even J.L. Johnston once had an option for an office park there and proceeded to cut away some of the freshwater end of the marsh (to create an “edge effect” that would take out even more of the marsh on its own) and to drain the upper end of the wetland out to airport road to deny the wetland some of its necessary water supply.

Big Wave is nothing more than the carrot. It’s similar to affordable housing proposals where only a quarter of the units will be so-called “affordable” (in itself a ridiculous set of figures in San Mateo County) and the rest market rate.

If Big Wave is a good idea, why can’t it stand on its own? (Or fall on its own, in view of the fact it will be adjacent to a substantial fault.) And why can’t Big Wave be located in a less remote place where its residents can be better integrated into the community?

Yup, it’s a development scam shamelessly using good people in need of a residential setting as shoehorns.

Carl May

SamTrans hasn’t addressed Coastside concerns

Some of you have it backwards. First cap the midcoast population with a strict, enduring, enforced, sustainable limit, then provide any necessary infrastructure. The other way around is just flailing at problems without any hope for long-term improvement.

The LCP being pushed by the Supes is a recipe for doubling the population--at least. Probably more, when all the exemptions not counted in the buildout unit numbers of the LCP are considered. And never forget, with growth and development adhered to religiously as the economic engine of “progress,” all buildout figures are merely considered plateaus by those in government setting them. With the prevailing growth ethic, when any plateau is reached, a new higher buildout figure is set.

Without irrevocable upper limits, infrastructure capacity and population are nothing beter than a game, a very expensive and destructive game, of leapfrog. This certainly has been the history of the midcoast, as it is elsewhere in suburban California. The intersections in HMB are much improved over what they were when the slide went out in 82-83. Signals are in where there were formerly only stop signs and they are timed to move more cars. In that outage, there were as many cars clogging up the intersections in HMB as there now are every day when the slide is *open*! Had there not been population growth in the interim, and had voters not insisted on a CUSD school board that added to traffic delays by ending busing, the current situation with the Caltrans-delayed reopening of the slide to traffic would be bad but not nearly as bad as it is. Some proof of this is seen on Pumpkin Festival weekend when the traffic delays in HMB are only half to two-thirds of what they once were not so many years ago due to improved traffic control.

This is the irrefutable history of every place in California with suburban growth since the end of WWII. Infrastructure and population growth go hand-in-hand. Bigger, rather than wiser, infrastructure simply leads to bigger problems--bigger traffic jams, for one--as long as there is growth.

Suburban growth in America is designed around an assumption it will be serviced by automobiles--residents will travel to get what they want while living in poorly designed, inefficient, unsustainable communities. A big portion of the people currently sitting in cars for hours on end moved to the midcoast when traffic was already bad and the area was already overdrawing some of its vital natural resources needed to sustain the human population. Nobody twisted their arms or put blindfolds on them, yet still they came. This is how it will be until somone gets real about local carrying capacity and gets a grip on rational planning.

With growth, four-lane roads lead to four-lane traffic jams--and calls for six or eight lanes. And we all, not just those profiting from growth and our lowering quality of life, subsidize the bigger messes the developers and their politicians are planning. Without growth, a community might take stock and become more livable. Here this might even be done without road expansion--non-vehicular transportation bikepath/trail parallel to Highway 1, school busing, public transportation designed to take people where they want to go when they want to go there, conversion of some residential areas to job-creating developments (with no greater height limits, lot coverage, and FAR’s), viable village nuclei in El Granada, Moss Beach, and Montara where people could satisfy their basic needs, etc. And the same ideas would serve the midcoast well if the end of cheap oil brings the demise of automobile-dependent suburbia that some predict.

Carl May

Caltrans seeking consensus, not approval, from HMB on traffic light

For those who don’t like the current situation--guess what you will get if you vote for the same people who produced it? Even a roll of the dice has better odds for improvement than voting for the same ol’ same ol’ in San Mateo County.

Carl May

Caltrans seeking consensus, not approval, from HMB on traffic light

Well, the unincorporated communities north of HMB do have “representation"--the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is our “city council.” I know, you’re laughing too hard to read anything more, but do remember that San Mateo County has permit power over Caltrans projects in unincorporated areas. Hypothetically, they could have forced Caltrans to use a repair that would get traffic moving on the slide weeks ago(more peals of laughter), but that is not something that could ever happen without a complete and highly unlikely turnaround in San Mateo County politics. The “Stupes” know who makes their butter and who puts it on their bread.

Carl May

Album:  Rebuilding Devil’s Slide, and a persistent question

Well, it’s lovely that some have been sold on faith that Devil’s slide is unique in all the universe, but that is simply not so--as attested to by books full of testimony and studies by independent geologists and engineers during previous outages. Caltrans has tried this “different” line the past couple of outages, always supported by their in-house geologist.

This slide is in a category of landslide broadly classified as a “rockslide.” The basics of rockslide movements are well known. No subscription to Caltrans religion required for this situation. We could be driving on a temporary repair on the slide right now--could have been driving on it for weeks now. This is how they do it in other places where the politics are different and a gullible, urbanized public is not taken in by an agency’s spin.

The $7.5 million being spent on this repair is double in dollars (not adjusted for inflation) what was spent on maintenance of the road from its opening in 1937 to the outage of the early 1980’s. This for a future trail when the twin tunnels are open, a trail that would not have required any extensive repair at all with the amount of movement that took place this year.

Coastsiders deserve the inconvenience they are getting for falling for the standard Caltrans line and getting sidetracked on trivia like coning off lanes and timing lights at congested intersections.

Carl May

Album:  Rebuilding Devil’s Slide, and a persistent question

I can’t help but note the assumption that Caltrans is doing what it must do. They depend on that sort of thing to have their way with us. The fact that things are done differently everywhere else when vital roads in steep places go out never seems to sink in around here.

Carl May

Coastsider endorses Leland Yee for state senate

Hey, it was twisted, that weird, slimy feeling I had the last couple of times I got one of the major party ballots and cast votes in a primary. So this time Yee will benefit from one more vote in Moss Beach.

Carl May

Coastsider endorses Leland Yee for state senate

I haven’t even bothered to check the ballot pamphlet to see if this will be another of those primaries in which independents can ask for a party ballot. If so, I just might get a Democratic one and place a Yee vote. This won’t be a vote “for” Yee, and I certainly won’t be voting for either him or the Republican candidate in November. But it’s not often I have a chance to vote against two strident, arrogant, politically manipulative, anti-coast candidates (Papan and Nevin) with a single mark.

Carl May

Be civil

You are right about a tone that will produce the greatest communication, of course.

Incidentally, I’m one of the few (and that’s a shame) true no-growthers to speak out much locally. In fact, I’m a negative growther. I rather like the “no-growther” label, as when I get it, I know I have already won the point and someone who doesn’t like it or who can’t rebut the truth of our overgrown, unsustainable condition has nothing but an empty label to offer.

Frequently, those who apply labels only succeed in labeling themselves. Perhaps that is not always a bad thing?

Carl May

Opinion: Fear of Foothill

Just a note on running out of basic resources needed to support growth. That has already happened. Water is California’s prime basic resource. The coastside ran out of enough water to support local population and other activities zoned into the geographic area decades ago. There wasn’t enough water on the midcoast from Montara through Half Moon Bay during the drought of the late 70’s, so all additional water use since then increases the shortage.

The CCWD, essentially acknowledging it didn’t have enough water to support the glassy-eyed local growth religion, built a pipeline over the hill to make up for lack of a local resource that could sustain the population in what the population was doing. Typically, there was no local consideration that the water coming (inefficiently) through the pipeline was coming from another place that also does not have enough water for sustainability (the watershed the Hetch Hetchy System drains and the Tuolomne River). A still-enlarging distribution system followed in the CCWD portion of the midcoast; and this, in turn, stimulates a desire to enlarge that pipeline sucking the hind teat of Hetch Hetchy. The blind leapfrogging of sprawl, California-style, usually goes like this, as long as the growth ethic prevails (and no matter what the rate of growth). Only communities capable of saying “no more” can back away from the all-consuming, built-in rape of overdevelopment and get on to trying to turn the situation around for improved environmental security and a high-level, eventually sustainable quality of life.

It’s a common failing in California, so let’s not get too down on CCWD for its ignorance and malfeasance. For many decades, the entire state has overdrawn its water accounts. This has led to insane suggestions such as channeling water down from British Columbia or (sometimes implemented!) creating sacrifice areas from which water would be drained for someplace else (with more political power). It has led to destruction of grand-scale, self-sustaining hydrologic systems in this most diverse and naturally rich of all landscapes in the U.S.--as California has gone over to a massive, ever-increasing, plumbing system for moving water to where money and power say it should go--the Delta being just one casualty most people recognize. It has contributed to the destruction of the natural ecologic properties of the Colorado River system and to enormous legal battles with other western states over who gets to wreck the Colorado the most.

Back to the midcoast for other resources needed to sustain human activity--food, energy, biodiversity, minerals, etc. The midcoast, including HMB, is not currently sustainable using local resources in any of these categories. Growth for a better quality of life around here is an oxymoron that has already exposed itself.

Carl May

Caltrans may end “free” right turns onto Hwy 92 for HMB commuters

I’d be happy to hire out as a driver, but I don’t have the time now that my work commute to my office in Pacifica has tripled. Besides, I don’t get into the silly games about lighting schemes when there are so much simpler and more obvious approaches to long-term relief.

Never forget as you are pained these days: cars could be crossing Devil’s Slide right now on a temporary repair. Heck, most places with road outages on the northern California and Oregon coasts managed on repairs sufficient to keep traffic moving *during* the heavy rainy period this year. We must have driven up and back across almost a dozen such places in March. Some of those places, where the highway crosses landslides, are repaired almost every year--not just during particularly rainy ones.

The cornucopian growth ethic is not serving you people well. Until you decide to try something different after repeated failures trying the same approach, you can only be defined as “nuts.” Simple answers are staring you in the face--you know, that tired confused image you see in the mirror each morning as you awaken enough to contemplate the time you are about to waste in your car, whether or not the slide is out.

Carl May

Devil’s Slide will be open in late September, says Caltrans

Re: size of the tunnels--
No, three lanes won’t fit in each planned tunnel, but two plus a shoulder will. There is no capacity need for a second lane, let alone a third, in each tunnel--except to boost the size and cost of the project. In fact, there is no need for two tunnels as far as expected capacity goes. These tunnels are the size of those built on four-lane Interstates, not on two-lane coastal highways that are, by law, supposed to remain two-lane in scenic rural areas.

If the current highway is to be put to use, there is no need for even one tunnel. There was no need for a 5- to 6-lane roadbed (plus shoulders and dividers) cut through Montara Mountain, so why would there be a need for six lanes of roadbed--four underground and two outside--at the slide?

It’s all District 4 of Caltrans being District 4 of Caltrans. The only significant difference this road closure is that without the bypass opponents pointing out Caltrans spin, lies, and pecadillos, almost everyone is rolling over for the nonsense.

Carl May

Devil’s Slide will be open in late September, says Caltrans

Ahem, the ‘83 repair to the highway on the slide did not last a mere 12 years. So far it has lasted 23 years, and we’re still counting. The ‘83 outage was not in the same place--didn’t even overlap--as the ‘95/present roadbed movement.

Carl May

Devil’s Slide will be open in late September, says Caltrans

Hmmmm. Looks like someone doesn’t know the twin tunnels already are sized for four lanes..

As for the outage in the early 80’s, Caltrans dragged its heels then, as well. The section of roadway that went out when a wedge of the larger landslide slipped after three weeks of solid rain (not at the end of a long rainy season as some would suggest for all the slide outages that occur every ten to 15 years in especially wet periods) was actually repaired in a matter of weeks when they decided to do it. The repair was not unlike what was done in the 90’s and is planned for this year, with rods run into the hillside to help anchor the roadbed. The section that slipped in the 80’s was more on the nose of the curve just south of the portion that slipped in the 90’s and again now. The slippage at roadbed level was not as long in the 80’s as in the 90’s. The biggest repairs for the outage in the early 80’s were at Martini Creek and at Green Valley; in both locations highway fills with creeks running through culverts at their bases were completely washed away. All of which makes the overly long time it took to reopen the road in the 80’s look even faster in comparison to the even more recalcitrant, bureaucratic, insensitive Caltrans behavior in the two episodes to follow.

But back to that underground freeway: won’t all of you now be just that more compliant when the cost runs up to, possibly, a half billion before it is open?

Carl May

Opinion:  Foothill Bypass, Part III: We can’t afford it

Wow, all the babble about pavement for everyone’s precious vehicles and lives misspent driving. And there, in the middle, is a message that actually makes suggestions for reducing problems rather than making bigger ones. Thanks Sophia Freer--just had to let you know someone bothered to read.

Carl May

Opinion:  Foothill Bypass, Part II: A legal (and literal) quagmire

Why is realism branded “surreal”? Just because planning is bad for our already overpopulated and overdeveloped local coastside communities, why accept the stupidity and projections that dictate even more problems and damage? If wider roads were the answer--and they never have been long-term in California because they haven’t been accompanied by a halt in growth--southern California and the freewayed greater Bay Area would be heaven. Bigger roads in urbanizing areas simply mean bigger traffic jams because they always go hand-in-hand with more growth and development. And if growth and development were halted and the coastside began the rational process of slowly ratcheting back to what can be sustained here, wider roads would still not be needed because traffic lightening would begin with direct, proven, non-automobile measures of the sort mentioned by Sophia Freer.

A minor item: the current backup-increasing traffic lights that have gone in on Highway 1 in recent years have been rationalized partly for safety reasons, especially after a number of deaths of people crossing the highway. Removing the lights and making the highway wider would make crossing by pedestrians and entry and exit by drivers even more difficult and dangerous than before.

Someone mentioned the freeway in northern Pacifica. Since it went in it has been a community-splitting disaster for many people, especially in the Sharp Park and Manor areas, and a number of local businesses now without close highway access and cut off from many of their customers. Knowing what they know now, there is substantial doubt it would be approved again by the citizens of Pacifica. In fact, bad experience with this freeway is one reason why Pacifica voters have twice, in recent years, turned down highway expansion between Vallemar and Rockaway to serve residential and commercial development in the quarry area--in spite of bad traffic on Highway 1 in that stretch (well, not so bad these days when the slide is closed) and in spite of the city’s perpetual need for commercial tax revenues.

By the way, my community is Moss Beach. People living elsewhere on the midcoast are in other communities. Highway 1 is plenty big in Moss Beach, though improvements providing safe crossings, preferably not lights, are needed and the turn lanes in the center are badly designed, useless for more than one car at a time turning off the highway in each location through town, and totally worthless for turning onto the highway.

Carl May

Opinion:  Foothill Bypass, Part II: A legal (and literal) quagmire

Wow, all the blind religious faith that roads must be widened and growth/development must occur--presumably as part of the natural progression of the universe? No one will ever accuse you desperate souls of understanding that sooner or later indefinite growth in any finite location will exceed what can be sustained. Look around you. This has already happened on the midcoast. Oops, I forgot my opening sentence--you are not able to look around you! Well, keep praying, and if you get your way, hope you enjoy the three- and four-lane traffic jams as much as you enjoy the current excuse to push for overexpansion.

Carl May

Opinion:  Foothill Bypass, Part II: A legal (and literal) quagmire

Still don’t want to turn off the artificially-contrived (for the benefit of a relative few) growth spigot, do you folks? Good to see you babbling on about road games that can only lead to more-laned congestion and greater crises due to more extensive destruction of already-overdrawn local resources. Why good? Because umpteen laws and contentious layers of approval and funding go with your innumerate insanity, and I’ll be dead before I have to suffer from the kind of foolishness encompassed in the pro-overdevelopment nonsense in the messages above.

Real, much faster solutions are available and made obvious simply by counting things. Not enough fingers? Get a clicker.

Carl May

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