Publication Date: Friday, December 03, 2004
ReaderWire
ReaderWire
(December 03, 2004)
Visual feast
I cannot remember the time when I have seen a better set of sports photographs in one paper than the four displayed in the Weekly's Nov. 24 issue.
From Keith Peters' photos of the Menlo water polo team dousing their coach and the Stanford volleyball "winning ace," to the wonderful photo by Nicholas Wright of the CCS finals, these action shots captured the intensity, humor and grace of these young athletes magnificently.
Nice job.
David Rapaport
Maddux Drive, Palo Alto
LED incentives
A recent Guest Opinion by City Council member Hillary Freeman (Nov. 17) mentioned the tree lights on University Avenue, which have occupied a fair amount of council time during the past couple of budget cycles. The cost of operating these lights is about $15,000 per year. Not a lot of money, but still -- a penny saved is a penny earned.
While Freeman's opinion piece was about budget process, the Christmas lights got me thinking. Advances in Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are bringing these semi-conductors into the consumer market in exciting ways. Rather than using incandescent bulbs, these seasonal lights are now being manufactured using LEDs as lighting elements.
The LEDs draw less than two watts and have lifetimes of more than 100,000 hours. Strings of 100 lights can be purchased for as little as $20. Power costs are reduced and bulb lifetimes extended -- just the sort of thing that the city should be looking for to reduce costs. With such low-power draws, solar power might even be viable to power these lights.
With federally subsidized power to be replaced with more expensive power in the not-to-distant future, the cost of powering the current set of bulbs will be even greater in the future.
LED lighting fixtures are being marketed for indoor and outdoor use. One manufacturer has a re-build kit of streetlights -- which we are now paying for with hidden charges on our electric bills.
With all of the new technology making its way to market every day, the city should consider convening an "Emerging Technology Task Force" to both educate itself to the possibilities of using these exciting new tools to both increase service levels and decrease costs of these services.
Wayne Martin
Bryant Street, Palo Alto
Tunnel trouble
Only in Palo Alto City Hall would an egregious boondoggle like the Homer Street tunnel be characterized as a total success. Not only is it unneeded -- the University underpass three blocks away really does transport pedestrians, bikers and cars effortlessly and safely in and out of downtown -- but its construction squandered $5 million sorely needed for infrastructure repairs elsewhere in the county, state and country.
Appropriately enough, execution from start to finish looks like a slow-motion train wreck.
The root cause of this debacle lies in the City Council's deeply held belief that they were anointed to conceive of and implement projects on a grand scale, like tunnels to nowhere and $50-million fiber-optic schemes, rather than to ensure that Palo Alto has the basic requirements of a modern community.
Never mind that the streets are in a disgraceful state of disrepair and never mind that libraries look frozen in 1955 or earlier, this council is going to pursue its grandiose rendezvous with destiny.
What Palo Alto desperately needs is a City Council that has its priorities firmly linked to the city's needs, not to council members' wants. The one good thing that might be salvaged from this fiasco is to have a plaque affixed to the tunnel wall clearly naming all those on the city's management "team" who approved and implemented construction.
That way we can all remember when the time comes to elect our next "team."
Ted Mill
Arcadia Place, Palo Alto
The wrong direction?
The Homer Avenue tunnel has almost accomplished its objective -- to get built. The time has come to find a use for it.
Its history offers little guidance. That the tunnel is only three blocks from other bike-pedestrian undercrossings at Embarcadero Road and University Avenue was well known during its planning process. So was the lack of a definite need for it at its location and that its users would confront the brutal Alma Street traffic, along with another of our city's strange fixations, one-way Homer Avenue.
But the concept had the momentum of longevity and some promise of civic prestige, so it duly became inevitable. Its negatives were hopefully wished away, unsolved.
The Homer tunnel may eventually prove very useful, but first it must be made usable. That shouldn't be difficult. Suitably rejiggered, the existing traffic signal could tame Alma traffic for safe crossing. The obvious answer to the one-way, wrong-way Homer conundrum is to revert it to normal two-way traffic. Likewise with High Street, as the rational complementing bike route to downtown.
Finally, revert Channing Avenue, for lack of any reason not to.
It can be done: Of the 536 streets listed in the booklet "The Streets of Palo Alto," only three are single-direction. Palo Alto should be able to assimilate three more two-way roads into its other half-thousand.
The bottom line is whether Palo Alto treasures its dangerous regional traffic magnet, the Homer-Channing Expressway, more than it wants to use its new bike-pedestrian undercrossing.
David Bubenik
Homer Avenue, Palo Alto
Fowl furor
Avian influenza (or bird flu), now projected by the World Health Organization to wipe out as many as 50 million people, is another deadly consequence of factory farming, today's grotesque method of raising animals for food. The projected death toll is comparable to that of the great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.
The virus incubates and mutates into more lethal forms in filthy, crowded chicken and turkey factory farms. It is then spread by migratory birds and transmitted to humans who come in contact with infected birds in factory farms or live markets common in Asia and U.S. ethnic neighborhoods. The 1957 Asian flu pandemic and the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic, each claiming a million lives, were blamed on mutated viruses from factory-farmed pigs.
Even in the absence of deadly flu viruses, chickens and turkeys are loaded with salmonella, campylobacter and other pathogens that sicken millions of Americans each year -- and kill thousands. The cholesterol, saturated fats and hormones in animal products have been linked conclusively with elevated risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and other chronic diseases that kill 1.4 million Americans annually.
Clearly, we should replace poultry and other animal products in our diet with wholesome vegetables, fresh fruits and grains. These foods don't harbor deadly pathogens and contain all the nutrients we require. They are touted by every major health advocacy organization and appear to have been the recommended fare in the Garden of Eden.
Ken Braiser
Northampton Drive, Palo Alto
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