Letter: Build the Bridge From Allied Gardens to Tierrasanta

I am very much for the bridge connecting Allied Gardens to Tierrasanta.

I have expressed this many times to local groups, and that is where it has ended. When Jim Madaffer, who lives in Tierrasanta, was the councilmember, he was very protective of that community and for the removal of the mere mention of a bridge.

During the Cedar fires, the Interstate 8 road was closed except for emergency vehicles. The residents of Allied Gardens, San Carlos and Del Cerro had nowhere to go to get away from the fires. I actually had live embers blowing right onto my home and property caused by the strong winds that accompany fires. It was very frightening. I spent hours outside with my garden hose trying to put out the embers that I could reach in the winds.

We need the bridge through Tierrasanta so that we are not marooned in our bedroom community.

I know the constituents that reside in Tierrasanta are dead set against the bridge as they feel it takes away their secluded environment. Well, they use our roads to go in and out of the surrounding areas, to get where they need to go, and they have done that for years and years. It is time that the city steps up and completes the bridge rather than removing it from the general plan for that area.

I also am against the development of the property that abuts Twain, Mission Gorge and the riverfront roads. I hope that you are aware of the multi-city river reclamation project that includes the county of San Diego, the city of San Diego, the city of Santee and communities farther up the river ending in Julian. The state has also funded a good portion of this project.

It is my understanding the no development can occur within 100 to 150 feet of the river embankments because of the plans for park-like settings, bike and walking trails. Also the river is in the 100-year-flood plain area, and who knows when Mother Nature will decide to use her powers.

Those proposed projects would like to build right up to the river, and from what I have been told, that is an infringement of the river project. So how can they possible do that? The county’s Real Estate Services Division has been working on the river project with all of the cities abutting the riverbed, for several years now.

Another issue: The street that I live on is the local arterial road that many vehicles travel to and from every day back-and-forth to work, and also other vehicles who cannot get onto the crowded onramps at College Avenue, Waring Road and Mission Gorge.

To approve more housing without major improvements to highways is just ludicrous. It will cause the bedroom communities that I mentioned above to be thoroughfares for people in Grantville, as it is already, but on a much on a much higher scale.

Judy Gervais lives in Allied Gardens.

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