Quality of life the issue with Santa Ana River bridges

It is interesting to note that “preserving the quality of life of

residential areas, schools and parks” is one of City Hall’s stated

major goals in removing the Gisler Avenue and 19th Street bridges

from the County Master Plan of Highways (“Few steps have been taken

in bridge battle,” Saturday). Sounds good.

One aspect of this is more ironic than interesting, as Victoria

Street, which would undoubtedly be part of the “solution” to

eliminating the bridges, is in fact more than 90% residential.

Victoria also hosts no fewer than two parks with tot lots, four or

five places of worship and two elementary schools.

In contrast, 19th Street has one church, no schools, one park and

is more than 50% commercial. On 19th Street, the distance from the

Costa Mesa city limits to the Costa Mesa Freeway is roughly one mile,

whereas the distance from the city limits to the Costa Mesa Freeway

on Victoria is roughly two miles.

Do the math: Using the 19th Street alignment will result in 50%

fewer surface street miles driven by our neighbors who access the

freeway by crossing through our city. That, coupled with the fact

that the Victoria alignment bisects a significantly greater number of

“quality of life” uses, makes the current story coming out of Costa

Mesa City Hall quite suspect, to say the least.

While I do not advocate for or against either bridge, I find it

particularly galling that our leadership sells “no bridges” with a

quality of life argument when the deletion of the 19th Street bridge

would certainly exacerbate quality of life impacts for those

residents, schools, parks, and places of worship on Victoria, Adams

Avenue and Coast Highway to a great degree.

Just whose quality of life are we out to protect? The out-of-town

merchants who operate on 19th Street? Ninety-six Victoria homeowners

have already paid the ultimate price, eminent domain having been

employed, and their houses bulldozed to make way for traffic. Those

who reside along Victoria must deal with the impacts daily and do not

complain too loudly, as they know they are doing their part to keep

things moving.

To the folks who think that bridges will impact their lives: Yes,

they will, to some degree or another. Does this reality make it OK to

penalize those of who currently shoulder their share of the burden?

Does it seem fair to dump ever more traffic into the residential

neighborhoods to keep other areas free of impact? We all benefit from

the roads and highways, and we all need to do our part to accommodate

free movement of traffic.

City Hall, please don’t tell us you are preserving quality of

life, when your plans actually multiply the impact on the types of

uses you claim to have a keen interest in protecting.

ERIC BEVER

Member, Westside Improvement Assn. Steering Committee

Costa Mesa

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Eric Bever was one of the final two candidates to

replace Karen Robinson on the Costa Mesa City Council this spring.