THE IRVINE VALLEY COLLEGE COMMUNITY will want to read an article in this morning’s OC Register: Train tracks to be moved above Jeffrey Road. Near as I can tell, the $45 million project was inspired by complaints from denizens of a nearby trailer park (Geezer Meadows).
Why don’t they just give the 45 mil to the trailer park people? They'll go away, and the rest of us won’t have to put up with construction for 2 and a half years.
9 comments:
"Trailer park people" often do not have the choices in life that more privileged homeowners do. There are fewer and fewer trailer parks -- really, manufactured home communities -- these days, due both to the increasing value of land and to the economics of a business in which the State prevents the owners from ripping the tenants off. Even if the State distributed the $43 MM among the residents (which, of course, would be taxed by the Feds and the State), the annual income of tenants is generally not great enough to secure funding for a mortgage of any kind, even the most sub-prime. There is no place for these people to go -- except possibly that anus mundi, Hemet.
Considering the precariousness of the tenants' situation, I think an underpass is the least that can be done.
The Jeffrey train underpass is long overdue. Don't you ever drive up Culver and see the underpass there? Unfortunate slam, there, of seniors and mobile homes.
You're a cold liberal bastard, Chunk.
Geez Chunk, unique perspective - Have a cookie.
That's a good Chunk.
I'm glad to see that so many people are concerned about the folks who live near the train crossing on Jeffrey. That's great.
Naturally, I understand that the residents there would rather not hear train whistles.
But, unless I am very much mistaken, trains were crossing Jeffrey at that location long before The Meadows opened and, at any rate, before most of its residents moved in. It is not as if, as things stand, some agency were imposing a hardship upon this population that they had not already embraced, at least to a significant extent, when they chose to move to The "Whistling" Meadows.
Now, $45 million is a great deal of money. My guess is that there are much greater needs around the state than the burden of continued daytime train whistlage.
My guess, too, is that this project, which is similar to the long-completed Culver project, is an expensive fix to the traffic/whistle problem. That is, I suspect that less Irvine-esque, yet perfectly servicable, solutions exist at a lower cost. (My guess is that a bridge would be cheaper than an underpass. Maybe a bad guess.)
But since the state is picking up much of the tab, why not go first class?
It is that kind of thinking that I object to.
Of course, my speculation regarding the facts here may be mistaken. (My family has long been in construction, but I'm certainly no expert.) If so, I'm sure that some of you will let me know.
--CW
P.S.: Sorry about the crack about "geezers." I have nothing against old people. I hope to join their ranks some day, although I'm in no hurry.
Think about it. Whether the train goes under the road (as with Yale) or over the road (as with Culver), everyone who lives within a half mile of the tracks hears the whistle blow. Too, I wonder just how eager residents in proximity to the excavation are about this project. When the Culver project took place, the foundations of adjacent homes were undermined.
Most of the funding ($24 million) does indeed come from the state.
And, judging my past newspaper accounts, most or all of the impetus here is from residents complaining of noise.
Jonathan,
I could not have said it better myself. My Mother lives in that park. I cannot afford a home here and I rent a small apartment. She is 82 and needs to be near me. That trailer park for low-income Seniors has been a tremendous blessing in her life as she still wants to be independent. There are only a couple of low income Senior areas in Irvine. The low income senior apartments have a seven year wait list.
I am grateful that the city values its seniors and is fixing the situation for many more seniors for years to come.
Dear Professor Wheeler:
I think it unlikely that citizen complaint about noise from such a relatively powerless segment of the population is truly the reason this project is going forward. The matching of considerable state funds with the City's stable of contractors is probably the marriage made in heaven here.
That the trailer park residents will benefit in some ways is, I am sure, wholly immaterial to the calculations at work.
Nonetheless, they deserve to benefit.
My grandmother's house in Brooklyn was immediately adjacent to the elevated tracks of the "D" subway line. Every fifteen minutes, a train would come by, shaking the house to an extent that would make us Californians duck and cover, certain that the Big One was upon us. There was a cost to this interruption, in shattered nerves and chipped crockery. But public policy was clear. She had "chosen" to live in that house, and she had to make her peace with the "D" train. If, by means of some lawsuit -- and I am sure that is what it would have taken -- she could have obtained relief at the City of New York's expense, that would have been a marvel of equity.
However it came to pass, the fact that Irvine is doing this of its own will is, in its own way, a marvel.
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