Trees
Santa Cruz in desperate need to
double the trees it has now!
That is what I read on a recent
article in El Deber, the Santa Cruz newspaper.
First, I was proud of myself for reading and understanding an entire
article in Spanish. I spend more time
speaking to people in Spanish than in English now, so my Spanish is improving.
Second, was the article
itself. Santa Cruz is growing
rapidly. It is one of the fastest
growing cities in South America. That
means a lot of cars on roads built for about half as many cars. Find yourself in a taxi, trying to get out of
the Feria, and you’ll know how crowded it is.
Or stuck in traffic at the corner of the Fourth Ring and the Doble Via
la Guardia! About the time I arrived
last summer, they passed a law forbidding left turns on the Second Ring just to ease traffic congestion. Santa Cruz is crowded.
The author said that Santa Cruz
has approximately 2.5 million trees, 61% in private residences and the rest in
public areas. The author said that many
trees could not handle the amount of cars in Santa Cruz. Trees, as you probably know, convert CO2 to
oxygen. Their solution to the problem is
stringent requirements on polluting cars, and encouraging more buses and
minibuses.
I cannot imagine the city
requiring cleaner cars. My estimate is
that 50% are too old and pollute too much.
Having more buses does not seem reasonable to me. I read another article a few years back that
when Los Angeles went to diesel buses in the 60s, the pollution got worse.
I think Santa Cruz needs to do
two things to fix the problem.
The first would be to have the
city, department, and businesses invest in a light rail system, much like we
have in Dallas. I can easily imagine a
light rail going north to south from the airport to La Guardia and an east-west
line going from Cotoca to Urubo. With
the well-designed ring system of this city, lines going around the Second and
Fourth Rings would be perfect too. This
would be so much better than adding the foul polluting micros and buses, and
would probably be a lot cheaper than the same system would cost to build in the
States.
My other idea is to plant more
trees, just like the article suggested. Already, there are places in the
city that are beautiful because of the parks, plazas, and tree-lined
avenues. The city needs to be aware to
build green areas as the city grows, instead of allowing unrestrained
growth. There are parts of town that
seem to be nothing but dust and cement. My neighborhood, though in the center of town, is a green oasis.
My last observation is that it is
not quite so bad here as some are making it out to be. Yes, if you are stuck on the corner of the
Fourth Ring, it is dusty, smelly, and polluted.
But so many days are windy.
Most evenings have a gentle breeze, and sometimes not so gentle, that
wash away the grime and dirt of the day.
But it is always a good thing to
plant more trees.
Adapted from an article from
eldeber.com.bo, March 12, 2017.
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