News

Smart planning
By Douglas A. Tinney - Letter to the Editor
Fremont Argus, June 25, 2007

Fremont, like every other American city, is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On one hand, the city needs to increase its retail revenue to provide services, while on the other it needs to think seriously about how to help curb global warming.

Mayor Bob Wasserman recently made a smart move and signed Fremont up in the Sierra Club's Cool Cities program. These are cities that have made a commitment to decrease global warming by signing the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement, a good first step, but just the first step.

Building shopping centers like Pacific Commons is not a step in the right direction. It is as pedestrian unfriendly as they come. A car is needed to get there and you need to drive from store to store once you've arrived.

The massive parking lots required to hold all the cars are not set up to keep pedestrians safe, and the multiple-lane thoroughfares required to move the traffic keep most people from attempting to cross them on foot.

Auto manufacturers love it; oil companies love it; but our environment becomes more polluted with every auto trip we must take.

Much smarter city planning is a must from here on out if we're really serious about cooling our planet and saving our environment.