Student Article High School Science Journal Author: Evan Smith

Regents Road Bridge

July 19, 2007

In 1959, the city approved a plan that would call for a bridge to “Soar” over Rose canyon, connecting Regents road on both sides of the canyon.  However, there are many steps that must be taken before cutting into a canyon. The city has to look at the environmental impact, public safety consequences, and how the bridge will overall affect traffic flow throughout the given area.  However on August 1^st 2006, the city council voted 6-2 to certify the Environmental Impact Report, meaning that they had overlooked the degradation to one of the last canyons in San Diego, and the impact that the surrounding community, including an elementary school a block from regents road would face for years to come.

      California is supposed to be on the cutting edge of environmental protection, and conservation of wildlife, yet we can still be cutting into serene canyons, knowing that thousands of cars will be passing over a once pristine canyon every day. Rose Canyon is home to an extremely diverse community of wildlife, including owls, hawks, bobcat, coyote, rabbits, rattlesnake, and countless numbers of birds, and other creatures.  Putting a 4 lane road over an open space canyon will raise noise pollution exponentially, driving out raptors that are indigenous to this area, as well as many other species of birds.  The excess of carbon dioxide produced from the car exhaust will cause plants to produce less oxygen, throwing the whole ecological community out of order, not to mention the runoff from the street into the canyons food web causing diseases in many organisms.

      University City has always been known for its quiet, mellow atmosphere.  There isn’t a high crime rate, and people feel safe here.  But how safe would you feel sending your child to elementary or middle school knowing that he or she will have to cross a road that will see thousands of cars every day.  Growing up in University City as a skateboarder, I have learned to stay away from Genessee around 5o’clock every day, because of the number of cars that feed to surrounding streets with crazed drivers, trying to take their shortcut to make it to the 52 faster than everyone else.  With an elementary, and middle school in the three blocks between Genessee and Regents, the last thing that hundreds of young children would need would be hundreds more cars passing by their schools every day.

      The purpose of the Regents Road bridge is to suppress the traffic flow on Genessee.  However, studies show that although there would be some relief of traffic on Genessee, the benefits would be minimal.  It’s kind of like doing a quadruple bypass surgery, in a sense that it will temporarily suppress the traffic experienced on Genessee, but installing a bridge will only lead to a greater flow of people coming and going from the University City area.  10 years down the line we could be seeing twice as many people as it has been projected today that we will see.  It has already been proposed to put in a 30 story high-rise on the corner of Genessee and La Jolla Village Drive, and there already have been many new apartment buildings put in around Costa Verde, and the UTC area.  More people means greater needs of water, energy, sanitation, and garbage disposal.

      In conclusion, the Regents road bridge fails to complete its purpose of benefiting the University City community.  The bridge would mean thousands of cars driving through a once residential neighborhood endangering school children, as well as causing detrimental environmental effects to a once serine canyon, home to a diverse ecological community.

 
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