San Diego Doesn't Want to Save Trestles

If public opinion reflects leadership, then the San Diego City Council’s decision not to ratify a resolution opposed to the 241 Toll Road -- the “Highway from Hell” that prompted the SAVE TRESTLES campaign -- affirmed that San Diegans don’t want to be bothered by anything that doesn’t affect San Diego.
The resolution, initiated by Councilwoman Donna Frye, was defeated by a 4-3 vote. “The smart move for the city of San Diego is to stay out of other people’s business,” Councilman Jim Madaffer said in an article in The San Diego Union-Tribune. Yeah councilman, real smart move.
The decision was lazy, dismissive, and abundantly apathetic, but even more it was irresponsible. The message is clear – if it doesn’t affect us, we don’t want to be bothered by it – and this coming from our city’s leaders.
What sort of call to action is required for people to get involved? In a time when apathy reigns, people only begin to care when they’re affected. You have to scare people in order for them to act. They have to feel like they stand to take a loss if change doesn’t occur.
And if we, as surfers, look at the toll road issue through an honest lens, it comes back to just that – we stand to lose something. Surfers don’t want Trestles to turn into a ghost of what it is now. Southern California doesn’t need another Killer Dana. That’s the surfer perspective. But the fight to save Trestles isn’t just a surfer thing. It isn’t just an environmentalist or political thing either. This is much bigger than those individual interests. What is at issue here is civic responsibility.
When public officials don’t do their job, they need to be called out. When they’re spineless and shortsighted, they need to be called out. Councilmen Madaffer, Faulconer, Young, and Hueso were not only apathetic in their votes against the resolution offered by Frye, they were also irresponsible. You don’t have to agree with her politics, but Frye’s fellow councilmen should have heeded her point that the proposed route of the 16.9-mile toll road will set an irresponsible precedent in terms of California’s state park and wildlife preservation.
What type of example are the leaders of this city setting for future generations? What does this vote say about the city’s priorities? This resolution should have been ratified unanimously, end of story. But I’m biased, I’m a surfer, and though I don’t surf Trestles nearly as much as I should, my position on the issue and my disappointment in our city’s councilmen is founded in the principle that some things need saving, no questions asked.
We need to work to preserve environmental interests and other cultural elements that enrich our history, because we subscribe to a culture that pays no homage to longevity. Any semblance of culture ascribed to California is a façade. We discard old “cultural” elements with the same frivolity and eagerness with which we usher in the new ones. We chase progress carelessly, and our pursuit has its consequences. Often times, the rate at which we seek to satisfy our urge for progress exceeds the rate at which we comprehend the ramifications of that progress. Thus, we look back, too frequently, at the population of our mistakes as a collection of regrettable decisions hastily made in the name of progress.
The 241 Toll Road will be remembered as one such mistake, nothing more than a $875 million money pit, and Frye’s resolution will go down as the San Diego City Council’s blown opportunity to help avert the state’s loss, both financially and ecologically.  The 241 Toll Road’s primary aim is to alleviate current traffic congestion from I-5 and I-15, and offset the heavy increase in traffic levels projected for 2025 in South Orange and North San Diego Counties. The toll road will save freeway commuters maybe 35 minutes on a good day. Thirty-five minutes. Is that what the San Mateo Creek and Trestles are worth? We’re talking about the destruction of Southern California’s last unharmed coastal watershed, just so people won’t be as inconvenienced by traffic that they already sit in; that is, if they choose to pay to use the toll road.
In Southern California death and taxes were supplanted long ago by traffic and development as the only two guarantees in life. Traffic, my esteemed councilmen, will always be a given. And once the 241 Toll Road is completed, developments will sprout up like weeds, swallowing the once pleasingly barren hills to the east. It happened once the 73 was completed in Orange County and again here in San Diego when the 56 was finally finished. To pretend that the San Mateo Creek and San Onofre State Park, and consequently Trestles, will go unharmed during and after the construction of the toll road and its subsequent surrounding developments is naïve at best. What is even more disconcerting is the precedent of indifference and selfishness exhibited by our city government.
Sometimes you need to stand up and fight, even if on the surface it seems like it’s not your fight. On Tuesday, September 26, four San Diego city councilmen ran from a fight. Like bystanders who witness a crime and do nothing, they turned their back like cowards. Ironically, when other California cities, much farther from the epicenter of the debate, voiced their opposition of the toll road, at least two of the councilmen cited jurisdiction as the motive for not voting in favor of the resolution. It’s pathetic when cities 400 miles away care more about what’s happening in your own backyard than your local councilmen.