Reduce car use to help sustainability
Regarding “Build the tube, skip the bridge” (Editorial, Feb. 25): The editorial urges the Bay Area to drop planning for a new road bridge between San Francisco and the East Bay in favor of a rail tube as the next big regional infrastructure investment.
A tube is smarter than a new car bridge, although a tunnel’s expense will be immense. Much better would be to invest in both our transportation problems and the housing crisis together.
We can do that by a substantial regional investment in building walkable transit oriented communities around the stations of the existing rail system, primarily Caltrain and BART. Such communities are more capital-intensive than regular housing construction because of high land costs and the cost of underground parking for their transit station.
But they are far less expensive to live in, because a household’s car ownership expenses can be eliminated or greatly reduced. By cutting automobile use, they also minimize adding new cars to our tightening traffic situation. Upgrading Caltrain and BART themselves should be part of a region-wide program. It would help our sustainability, our readiness for new technologies and our cost of housing, and can be done for a fraction of a premature new tube’s $12 billion cost.
Peter Lydon, Berkeley
Campaign boast
Vladimir Putin’s saber-rattling speech about “invincible” new missiles that the U.S. can’t defend against appears to be nothing more than a President Trump-worthy campaign boast to his deluded popular base.
Perhaps Putin has forgotten that all of his thousands of nuclear weapons already have no useful defense by U.S. or other forces — or that we are all still living as we have been for decades in the shadow of mutual assured destruction.
Alan Tobey, Berkeley
Dead on arrival
Regarding “Trump’s leadership is AWOL” (Editorial, March 2): How can leadership be expected from a president who lacks a moral compass? Trump will not demand further investigation into Russian interference with our election process because it might delegitimize his presidency. He won’t even implement sanctions against Russia that Congress approved months ago. When it comes to providing leadership on any important issue, such as racism, poverty, sexual harassment, climate change or foreign tampering in our elections, Trump’s leadership isn’t just AWOL, it’s DOA.
Nigel Llewlyn, South San Francisco
Diminished tradition
Regarding “Compromise offered to honor Columbus” (Bay Area, Feb. 28): The Board of Supervisors continues to dilute and diminish yet another cultural tradition in San Francisco, Columbus Day, now to be shared with Indigenous Peoples Day. How sad that the Italian American contributions to San Francisco could begin to fade thanks to our supervisors’ drive to push their politically correct agenda and ensure that no one is ever offended.
If the supervisors truly want to honor indigenous people, then why not give them their own day? We’ve already had to change the name of the Columbus Day Parade to the Italian Heritage Day Parade since Christopher Columbus is so offensive to so many. Give us our own Italian Heritage Day or we’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse. Tony Bennett is Italian. Should the city ban the song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” since Bennett shares the same heritage as Columbus? Angela Alioto, we need you now!
Claudia Angeli, San Francisco
Leaders’ failed morality
The government’s continued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, tearing apart families, leaving children to navigate the bumpy road to adulthood without parents and extended family, is another step in the pattern of failed morality of the Trump administration and its Cabinet.
Similarly, the path our current congressional members walk with blind adherence follows the road laid by decades of lobbying, cemented with the money of corporations, now empowered as people under Citizens United to fill congressional coffers, guaranteeing another term for those who turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people affected by a government that rolls over constitutional rights while touting a Second Amendment whose history it cannot recite. Rounding up people who have lived here for years, tearing apart families and closing our borders goes hand-in-hand with the death of church members, concertgoers and children at the hands of those emboldened by hate-filled rhetoric with guns paid for by corporations which, by definition, have no inherent morality. Shame on all of them!
Karen Friedman, Berkeley
Trump’s talk is cheap
Regarding “Trump hints he’d OK assault weapons ban” (Nation, March 1): Count me as a skeptic. Talk is cheap, especially from President Trump. He has repeatedly pretended to be the good guy, the tough guy and the one who would finally pivot, only to pull a bait and switch. He did it with health care, his so-called middle class tax cut that would not be good for him, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and his infrastructure scam. This guy is the consummate con artist. Just ask Mitt Romney or Mike Bloomberg. There is no way that Trump or the GOP will cross their paymasters at the National Rifle Association. But maybe I’ll be proven wrong.
John Brooks, Fairfax