I have daughter that lives NOR. She is a teacher. She works in East Bakersfield. Her husband Tehachapi Prison.

I told them not to move out there.

They should have known better. But they moved there because of the lifestyle. I told them seven years ago. Part of the lifestyle is traffic congestion. They paid me no mind.

Yet they complain of the traffic as loud as anyone.

What we are talking about is a economic choice. Not a life and death situation. The time for NOR to mediate the traffic problems. Was at the Laborde Ranch EIR trial over 20 years ago.

Today is the time to look to the future and insure no more problems such as NOR happen again. It is time to give notice that you can not prod ahead never mind the forecast. Making decision with out regard to proper warnings.

There is no money. That is a fact. TRIP is a dream that Thomas had for his monument.

NOR growth is dead. We have no bling to continue to mediate all the problems that area encompasses.

My first wife was raised on a farm NOR. I know it is a wonderful area for a farm.

It is a horrible area for the development that has taken place there. It is unimaginable to think there still are those that think that area was ever viable as the massive development that it has become.

The SOR, both east and west, are the proper place to expand Bakersfield.

It's time to bury the dead. If we waste our heart on the dead. We neglect the living.

SOR is Bakersfield's baby. Let's not fail it also.

tkozy I like alot of what your saying except the part where your getting down on all the NOR residents..Just so you know ya might need to be a wee bit more specific on who your slamming..I along with many of my friends spent a goodly portion of my childhood here and raised our families in the Rosedale area. 10 years ago my father passed away in his home of 45 years on meacham road when it was all alphalfa fields..Our lives were set in Rosedale many years before all this freeway crap happened. Progress just kinda dropped out of the sky around us..

In my younger years I used to walk all the way down oleander from beale park to the valley plaza to visit my girlfriend (now wife)..sometimes we met in Vernal Park on friday nights and I carved our names in a tree...all those memorys were destroyed in the path of "the new HWY 58 to nowhere" I wont suffer that again if I can help it..now we have alot more to lose than just a tree..

Are we supposed to sell out and move because we get all the new home owners cramming in around us and now they are complaining about the traffic they caused???

This is our home dammit and we planned on giving it to our grandkids when the time was right..I want it to be worth something when that day comes.

The problems of the past have come back to haunt us for sure. And the solutions given, are to delay improvements in the south west to mediate the greed that caused the increased population in the north of the river area.

Westpark will not help north of the river unless development stops immediately. And that's not going to happen until the NOR folks understand they have to pay for their own mistakes.

If we spend all the TRIP money and the ½ cent sales tax on NOR. What happens to transportation project in the south west.

They get put on hold, we suffer traffic congestion the same as those foolish enough to move NOR.

Westpark is no different than if you left all your inheritance to the child in prison with life without parole. Leaving the rest of your children homeless and to starve.

Why should the foolish and reckless be rewarded for their purposeful mistakes at the expense of the honorable?

Save what can be saved. Save those willing to help themselves.

Rosedale today is overly congested due to traffic from I-5 to 58. We knew that was going to happen decades ago. But if a moratorium is not placed on NOR development. Nothing imaginable will be able to alleviate the traffic congestion NOR. EVER.

Keep in Mind. The Feds are broke. California is broke. The county and city will soon be broke.

We are dreaming. We are fighting over a wish list. We are kids running to the mailbox waiting on the Sears Catalog.

But we got no bling..

No GET south of Panama

Golden Empire Transit continues to operate it's bus system. But discussion of light-rail or other non-automobile public transportation systems is very limited.

In a story I wrote last year, local leaders said the community is not large enough and funding is focused on freeway building. They said the local car culture is too strong to justify public transportation — basically no-one would use it.

James Burger

why isnt bako land looking at alternate transportation?

AdamPayne,

Just a couple of facts for you.

You say, "I still do not understand why a fairly large and nice little pocket of homes and businesses needs to be demolished while the expressway remains a dream."

I'm not saying the Westpark alignment is the right or wrong idea.

But the expressway has proceeded far beyond the "dream" stage. (It's only taken 28 years)

By expressway I belive you mean the Westside Parkway — which the proposed Westpark alignment would connect to.

Federal environmental clearance has been granted on the Parkway. Designs are being finished and the final pieces of property are being purchased. Construction is scheduled to start this year — or maybe maybe next year depending on delays.

True, the project doesn't yet have all the money it needs. But KernCOG just gave an additional $31 million to the project, which will join the $157 million that has already been allocated to the Parkway from state and federal freeway funds. Current estimates indicate that's enough to start building  the freeway at Truxtun Avenue and Empire Drive, take it over the Kern River and all the way to Calloway Drive.

The city hopes to find additional funding sources to finish the $125 million segment that would take the route all the way out to Heath Road at Stockdale.

Taking the route out to Interstate 5 would be another matter.

James Burger
Californian staff writer

Bakersfield needs a better highway system, if it would have been dealt correctly in the first place we wouldn't be facing the problems we are now. The city is growing and things need to change.

Anyone that has driven in Bakersfield and any other city in the country knows we are really lacking a good highway system. A good higway plan will help the city expand and meet the needs of the commercial truckers that want to bring good to or through our city.

I watched Bill and Sue debate it out and it seemed about what you would have expected. Bill worked hard to get the money to our community in order to insure the project would be done right. Sue did not want people that would be voting for her to be put out in any way, even though they would recieve full market price for thier property and would be able to use that money for anything they see fit (like buying another home).

Superman,

Taken out of context my position does seem selfish. But you must understand. When they decided to dead end 58. I said don't come to me later and ask me for money to right the wrong.

When people started building homes in the middle of the industrial complex north of the River, I said stop. Listen to me. You are going to be confronted with enormous traffic and pollution problems. Don't come to me latter and ask for money to right the wrong.

People puffed up their chests and and told me to stay out of their business. They can build where they wish. This is a free country.

I warned each and every one that would listen. It is not my duty to bail them out.

It is not as though the problem should not have been evident to anyone with near average intelligence.

This is a a free country. Finance your north of the river projects on your own.

In fact, keep all the Thomas monuments, north of the river.

One of the great pitfalls of large projects is over politicizing issues.  This typically results in long delays, increasing cost and public frustration.  The best thing anyone can do is trust the independence of consultant engineers and the desire of City staff to do what is right, free from political influence.  Comments such as the California’s show the destructive force of the media when they develop positions or polarize the public outside of technical data or expertise. 

Unless there is another 52 type earthquake soon the road system will never be finished.

In the year 2020 when they are putting the finishing touches on the White Lane interchange and the grate quake hits the roadway system will become a major priority and perhaps Kevin will bring home another couple of pork hindquarters for Bakersfield to start all over on the and or start the squabbles anew.

For now,  however, chill out neither you nor your children will ever see the Thomas bacon parkway built nor will you see the end of 58 other than what you see today.

I bet that 58 dead end will become a new courthouse site.

Good point, Driln.  He's from Idaho too, I think.  My guess is he's got a lot of, um, revenue streams here locally.  Speaking of which, anyone know who is set to do the construction on the freeway extensions?

nooneisabovethelaw, yes, that $630 million (porkbarrel money)  will go back to Washington,

I remember reading that Thomas was voted as the Congressman with the worst temper by his own staff when he was in office.  I can't imagine what he's like when he's not on TV.

Well, I gotta question Thomas' smarts anyway.  He's retired with one of those great Congress pensions and he's building a home here in the valley.  He ought to have done what former county supervisors and police have and moved to thr clean air of Idaho, or at least Bishop.

Bill Thomas has plenty of happy bills

And what part of the 1/8th do you not understand? Let me explain this yet again: if the city/county cannot come up with $75 million, give or take a few bucks, we get NOTHING. That $630 million will go back to Washington. PERIOD. And the longer we dither and dally and worry about it, the less roads that money can build.

The other really big problem? Our highway infrastructure around here will probably cost about $1.6 billion in today's dollars, assuming we ever turn over a shovel full of dirt on it, and it will take 20 years. So we're only about $900 million short.

The city of Phoenix decided where the roads needed to go and got it done and bought up and demolished houses. So sorry, too bad, but that's the way it was. And even if we can improve it, we'll still have problems. Adding lanes/roads is a temporary fix, at best. It will ease the problem but it won't solve it. There are better, longer-term and yes, more costly solutions, but I keep forgetting, we leave in the land where nobody can tell anybody anything they don't already agree with. 

I think Bill Thomas may need a happy pills.

One question~has Thomas ever been a happy camper? I mean sans the affairs and dipping in the pharmaceutical companies deep pockets? He is infamous for the grouchy guy he is,and the Californian has given him way too much praise and a pass on some of his dirt,which ,I will give him, he was smart enough to get away with.

Dear Citybeat:

Do you think your readers remember past stories when, like today, you disparage Bill Thomas and soft-peddle Sue Benham.

Give me a break.  You people are so partisan and anti-freeway that it makes me ill.

Hey.

Build me a kozy and get the freeway over it.

Oh thats right...you can't because we have a few gutless city council officials. Go Bill.

Indoorfootballfan:

You mean like Bob Price did in his column of Aug. 5, 2005; the editorial board did on Aug. 23, 2005; the editorial board did on Sept. 26, 2005; and the Californian editorial department did by proclaiming him Person of the Year (with readers' help) at the end of 2006?

Stop complaining..............  what have YOU done to improve the Roads system lately?  At least the Congressman fought for us and got $630,000,000.  Did you?

Tkozy more like "selfishkozy",  I know you want your property to be worth more, but the bottom line is this: there is no way to fix the freeway problem but whatever the shortest distance is and the cheapest way to do it should happen. Who ever made the commuter freeway plan didnt know what the heck they were doing!! Fix it, Fix it!!!

Bill Thomas had every reason to rip into Sue Benham.  She simply doesn't "pack the gear" necessary to understand complex transportation systems.

The freeway should have been built through Westpark 10 years ago.  When long-dead elected officials screwed up our freeway planning, they set the stage for conflicts between existing structures and connecting freeway alignments.  Westpark is a declining area anyway -- getting CalTrans to buy out those homeowners is doing them a favor!  But regardless, 380 homeowners do not have the right to make such an important decision for the 425,000 of us who live in Greater Bakersfield.

Finally, would it have killed you folks at the Californian to give Congressman Thomas an attaboy for procuring this much-overdue federal road construction money?

A city loop. One that does not invade inhabited areas. Is the solution to the 58 dead end.  It would also alleviate the Rosedale problem. 

But there is no money. There will be no money. The Thomas earmark and his TRIP funds has turned all of California against us. We are on our own. More specifically, north of the river is on it's own.

The S-curve as Benham outlined it to me avoids the problem Burger mentioned. Specifically, it doesn't create a new interchange, but expands the current southern 58/99 interchange.

Exactly how many ramps and possible configurations remains to be seen. Thomas' pictures made it look like you can continue on westbound 58 to westbound Westside Parkway. But will you be able to go from 99 northbound to the Westside Parkway? What about 99 southbound to Westside Parkway? Adding either of those possibilities will make the interchange more complicated, possibly running up against Caltrans standards. The more complex an interchange is, the less safe it is. But if you don't have those ramps, that hampers connectivity.

The city council won't win the hearts of voters or taxpayers regardless of what they do.

If they take the initiative and finalize plans for a new parkway, they will be a target for those who don't want an increased sale tax, regarless of it's worthiness.

If they don't address the gridlock in Bakersfield and wait for the next council to take it up, they'll be known as the council who sat on their hands while they watched the city lose real opportunities for building roads.

I'm interested in seeing how this discussion of the Westpark alignment — and the two other possible alignments along Union Avenue and Highway 99 — will fare in discussions at the Bakersfield City Council.

Its become clear in our reporting that the city probably can't afford to build a big enough sections of the Alternative 15 plan to be able to justify the TRIP money Thomas secured nearly three years ago.

Benham said the new alignments are being looked at because the city needs to find a solution that makes both interregional and local freeway sense.

Thomas bashes Benham for saying Caltrans doesn't like the S-curve idea.

That's old news. Caltrans officials have bashed the S-curve idea since 2000 because it violated state freeway design standards by putting a new interchange too close to the Rosedale Highway and California Avenue interchanges with Highway 99.

Maybe there is a new solution that would make the S-curve work. Maybe the Westpark plan is still better. Maybe it's not.

I'm looking forward to watching the city and Caltrans work to answer those questions.

JAMES BURGER

Californian staff writer

Well all that 'Public Service' leads to a cush existence being a private citizen, only now the lobbyist pocket money is a paycheck and not a 'donation', noone. LOL

And tkozy is right...we will not get the TRIP money because we can't come up with the matching funds.

Thomas' temper tantrums were the stuff of legend in Congress. It's funny how these guys who are supposedly so anti-government first work at a public community college and then work as a Congressman for their entire careers...living completely on the taxpayer's dime, except for what they get from lobbyists...and we're supposed to believe they want smaller, less expensive government?

The TRIP money is worthless unless my taxes are raised.

In order to kick start the TRIP money, a ½ cent sales tax will have to be put in place.

What business will vouch for that in the middle of a recession.

What citizen south of the river will vouch for such a idiotic idea.

I want North of the river to stop building. I want building to increase south of the river. Building south of the river can progress with out the use of TRIP money. Building south of the river will increase the value of my property. And I am not a one horse and pony show. I have Castle and Cooke as my cut man.

TRIP was Thomas' last hurrah. It was money to build a personal monument at the expense of the taxpayer through a ½ cent sales tax increase.

Fiscal Republican. Yea sure. He is done as a politician in Kern County.. He has no standing with fiscal conservative in Kern County anymore.

Let him go lobby for the Corporate Drug Czars in Washington. He is finished here .

Sue's a democrat and Thomas is a republican.  Who else on the council would he rip into.  Sue at least said what she believes.

But, tkozy, don't kid yourself.  Thomas is STILL a force to be reckoned with.  And the TRIP money is one earmark that is sorely needed and richly deserved.  Kern hasn't had it's fair share of road money in 40 years, (the condition of our roads will testify to that)  so, it's our turn.

He is also a old has been. And his TRIP fund the most despicable ear mark in the last two centuries.

So let the old man whine. And limit the ½ cent sales tax, to north of the river.