Primary job public safety
Danger signs should be placed in University City south of Rose Canyon. All who live here must be aware that medical, police and fire emergency response times are in excess of national standards. The unacceptably long response times can be attributed to the lack of roads in the area. Genesee Avenue is the only thoroughfare between south University City and the hospitals and fire and police stations in north University City. With Genesee congested with traffic for three or four hours every day, we have fire and medical disasters waiting to happen.
How did we arrive at this condition? Our San Diego City Council has, year after year, approved high-density construction in University City without also providing the proper infrastructure required to support the subsequent increase in traffic.
Consequently, our University City emergency services have been completely overwhelmed. Having created the emergency services problem in University City, the City Council has an obligation to alleviate that problem.
What to do? Build the Regents Road Bridge to provide south University City residents with an alternate route for emergency vehicle services. Ninety percent of emergency vehicle events are medically related. Reliable emergency medical services can be obtained only by providing an alternate route from south University City to the hospitals in north University City.
It is urgent that the City Council commit to its primary job of providing for the public safety. Do not turn your back on the residents of south University City.
I urge the City Council to vote to construct the Regents Road Bridge, thereby fulfilling a University City planning document requirement that dates back to the 1960s.
Gene Worscheck, University City

Trying times in the tarnished Triangle
University City has slowly morphed from the Golden Triangle to the Tarnished Triangle. We are threatened to be eaten alive by a 24 hour LAX-like mega-airport that will operate 24 hours a day in the not-so-distant future.
Our community has been carpetbagged by developers who have taken their profits at the expense the community’s quality of life. We are told we are becoming the central part of San Diego and "the second downtown," yet our area has no plans for a trolley or Coaster stop.
The bus route that used to service the hundreds of senior residences on Kantor, Pavlov and Gullstrand was stopped last month, the bus stop signs removed and I guess the seniors who don’t drive are just SOL.
We read in our community paper that many more 30-story towers have been approved and will be built.
What galls me is that for decades the development of UC has been predicated on connecting Regents Road to Governor Drive to provide an additional north/surface street, and yet there are those who want to pretend all this development never happened and we will be just one big happy community if we do nothing.
I don’t agree, build the Regents Road Bridge already!
There are those who call Rose Canyon a park, but I don’t know many parks that have 50 trains a day running through them.
It’s time for west UC to share the traffic burden that east UC has dealt with for years.
Donna Vance, University City

Regents Road Bridge in UC: when?
The question is not will the Regents Road Bridge be built in University City; the question is when will the Regents Road Bridge be built.
The answer is, for the safety of all residents of University City and anyone traveling through University City, it must be built now!
The building of the Regents Road Bridge is long overdueThose people against building the bridge point to the impact it would cause to the wetlands, endangered species, and, the serenity of Rose Canyon. They fail to mention the railroad that runs through the canyon now and the very busy freeways and roads that run through it and around it. None of these noisy, polluting things have bothered the canyon.
These people refer to the bridge as running on the canyon. The bridge would not run on the ground through the canyon wetlands ” it would run over it ” causing no more upset to the area than the freeways. Bridges do not run on the ground ” they run over it. The hikers, naturalists, scout groups, bikers, school groups, and joggers would likely not be aware of it unless they looked up. There is plenty of noise already from the cars and the trains that run on the ground through the canyon.
Most of the University City residents who are against the bridge are more concerned about the serenity of their own west-end area than the serenity of Rose Canyon.When many of these people moved to University City, it was a quiet little village in the midst of the city. That was 35-plus years ago. That sleepy little village belongs to the past. It is no more!
We have become a vital area in the middle of our huge, vibrant city, the eighth largest city in the country. We now have a shopping mall, office buildings, and many apartment buildings and condominiums in University City.
The safety of all the people in University City depends on another route in and out of the area. The most important of issue all is the dangerous emergency situation that exists on Genesse Avenue during the evening rush hour. There are fire engines, paramedics and police cars constantly using Genesee Avenue ” it is the only route through University City.
Again and again, University City residents face great danger when the paramedics cannot get through the evening traffic. The paramedics move into the northbound lanes ” they drive south in the northbound traffic lanes to get to their emergency call. The paramedics, with sirens blaring, drive more slowly, but drive in the fast lane, right into oncoming northbound traffic. It must be quite a shock to the northbound drivers to find the paramedics coming straight at them.
Even the most careful drivers can be surprised as there is a curve going toward the high school and there is not a straight view down the street. This is a disaster waiting to happen!
There are three schools, University City High School, Standley Middle School and Curie Elementary School, one block from the intersection of Genesee Avenue and Governor Drive. Many, many students cross the roads at this intersection.
It is time that University City’s west-end residents came to terms with the reality that University City will never again be that sleepy little village. It is time for them to move into the 21st century!
The Regents Road Bridge was promised 30 years ago. Now is the time to build it. As a safety measure for everyone, University City desperately needs the Regents Road Bridge as another way in and out of the area.
The Regents Road Bridge is not an option, it is an urgent necessity!
M. J. Schuster, University City

Planners of past had a good plan
NIMBYISM is running rampant in UC.
A certain group of our residents have convinced others that building the Regents Road Bridge would create a safety problem for children playing in the now blocked-off Regents Road and infringe on the pristine beauty of Rose Canyon. Has anyone noticed that Doyle Park is convenient to those north of the canyon? And does anyone call a canyon through which a freight train runs, pristine?
As a resident of the eastern end of the community, this is simple NIMBYISM.
When the Cedar Fire was racing across MCAS Miramar, there was a probability that the fire would jump I-805 and get into San Clemente Canyon.
Fortunately, the fire was stopped before it reached I-805. Had it not been stopped, the fire would have burned through the canyon, blocking an additional escape route on Highway 52.
Genesee Avenue northbound would have been the only way out to I-5 and safety. Residents from both ends of the community trying to escape on that route would have created gridlock and panic.
Additionally, if you’ve been on Genesee southbound during the rush hour, you’ve seen fire equipment and ambulances switching to the northbound lanes to get around the gridlock that always occurs at that time of day. Anyone in a critical situation in the east or west UC along Governor Drive is put in additional peril because of the delay.
The planners of the past prepared a well-thought-out routing from north to south. Money has been deposited by developers over this 30-plus-year period for the bridge. That is a good plan.
Don’t waste that money with additional lanes on Genesee and under-grounding of Genesee at Governor Drive. The additional lanes will just cause a larger backup at the on ramp in San Clemente Canyon. It’s time to implement the existing plan by building the bridge.
Timothy Smith, University City

Swat this ‘March to Miramar’
The “Act now on airport relocation” letter to the editor in your June 8 issue (UC/Golden Triangle News, page 6) is certainly appropriate and raises good points about problems with Miramar as San Diego’s airport.
But it misses key items that are most devastating when the rights of citizens under the flight paths are considered. Some pretty awful offense is being contemplated.
The Regional Airport Joint Use Plan sound profiles are for arriving aircraft, as is presumably also their calculations of people affected, some 10,765 homes. Arriving aircraft are in a descending powered glide, the quietest time of their flight.
The problem is the departing aircraft. They are at full takeoff power. Hence the maximum noise offense is then for people on the ground near the flight paths. These will be like double or triple in the homes under the departure paths. Is there intentional deceit here?
The Seawolf departure from Miramar was adopted about 30 years ago after multiple complaints from La Jolla homeowners and UCSD about noise from Miramar fighter airplanes flying over.
Seawolf is a Miramar climbout over Sorrento marshes to the north, requiring two 90-degree climbing turns. Fighter aircraft can do it. It moves their noise over less occupied land.
But the point is that the wide-body passenger aircraft, even current models, can’t use Seawolf.
On departure for long flights such as Honolulu and Japan, a 747 has to load 40 tons of fuel plus passengers, baggage and freight. These loaded aircraft can’t make the climbing turns required by Seawolf. Even a lightly loaded military C-5 can’t do it without dangerously losing maneuverability.
This isn’t in the cards either for new passenger aircraft. The European A380 now beginning service weighs 300 tons, unloaded. It has 8,000 nautical-mile range and requires upward of twice the 40-ton fuel load of the 747, also with over 600 passengers and their equipage. Immense takeoff power from its four 70,000-lb. thrust engines will blow the rocks off the hillsides.
The proposed new runways they will have to use are aimed at Mt. Soledad in La Jolla. The flight path is right over residences already built in North Clairemont, Kearney Mesa, UTC and along Miramar Road all the way to 805.
Just look to your right and left as you drive along Miramar Road and La Jolla Village Drive, a two-lane blacktop when Miramar was built, now four and six lanes, plus Route 52 freeway a bit south. Most of this development has occurred in the last ten years.
The home owners, easily 30,000 people, not to mention hotels, business and high rises, will be subject to nerve-wracking noise overhead at any and all times. Property values, land and tax revenues will go down. Unbelievable unfairness will be cited.
This building was done before the cabal of developers’ campaign to break the piãata at Lindbergh so they can sweep up the goodies there. The Class Action lawyers will love this.
Now, another thing. To train pilots to land on aircraft carriers as is done at Miramar requires lots of territory without any people underneath. The noise is one thing and the danger from new pilots in powerful aircraft is another.
Field Carrier Landing Practice is a grand circle over vacant territory provided when Miramar was converted for jet aircraft years ago by buying the land up to 15,000 feet south of the present runways. This home of vernal pools and wild life freedom will be sacrificed in the new plan.
The Field Carrier Landing Practice at Miramar for replacement air groups is wedged in where it will compete for air space with present Miramar traffic plus commercial aircraft.
Indeed, fellow citizens, do wake up and swat this “March to Miramar” down before it even gets to a vote in November! Send the advocates home and look at the two other reasonable options for a new San Diego airport that have been stuffed in the background on behalf of the developers.
Robert. R. CampbellLa Jolla

Let’s get SeaWorld to be a ‘good neighbor’
An Associated Press item printed in the San Diego Union-Tribune July 8, 2004, stated that Disneyland in Anaheim is using pressurized air to launch their fireworks.Disneyland stated that they switched from using explosive powder to pressurized air to reduce the noise of the explosions, the smoke and the hazards to safety.
Disney said they wanted to be “good neighbors.”
SeaWorld’s nightly fireworks season has begun. Again, this year, so far, they have been launching their fireworks using explosive powder, the concussions of which resemble a war zone.
If enough of us contact Mike Cross, an executive vice-president for SeaWorld, we may be able to convince him that SeaWorld could also become a “good neighbor” by converting to pressurized air to launch their fireworks. Contact him at 500 SeaWorld Drive.
Karl A. Korhum, Ocean Beach