[SDCBC] Explaination for big gutters and narrow bike lanes on Carmel Valley Rd.

[Robert Leone]

Dear All:
	Hi! I had the pleasure of a social event on Tuesday with one of the 
people who'd helped give input into the Carmel Valley Road rebuild. The 
road isn't as wide as it could be because the "stakeholders" all agreed 
nibbling the edges of the Torrey Pines reserve was a bad precedent to 
set. The monster gutter pans and huge drains are also to protect Torrey 
Pines -- there's a lot of water coming off those hills to the north when 
it rains. This means, perhaps, that Carmel Valley Road may have the only 
set of gutters in the county set up not for average rainfall over the 
course of the year, but the sort of half an inch in half an hour 
rainfall we normally get when we do get rain. Perhaps.
	As to why the narrowness couldn't be at the expense of the motorists 
instead of the cyclists, ask yourself when was the last time you saw a 
motorist driving a narrow road as if it were a narrow road....
	Now if we could only do something about the free on street parking at 
the entrance of the paid state parking lot! Of course, that's a 
pot/kettle situation, because cyclists park for free at the Carmel 
Valley Park and Ride all the time, and I understand the 
birdwatcher/surfer point of view here....

Robert Leone