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Editor: 

Councilmember Betty Olds did our community a great service by requesting that the Fire Department do a presentation on the proposed hills Fire Station before the City Council. The Fire Department clearly demonstrated that their reasons for preferring the site at Shasta and Park Hills roads are well researched and in the best interest of our entire community. 

Hopefully this information will dispel all the misinformation and rumors that have been generated about the new fire station and we can move forward in the best interests of our city.  

Thanks again to Betty Olds for demonstrating her leadership and insisting that all the information be presented publicly and to Fire Chief Reginald Garcia for an excellent presentation of the facts. 

Kathleen De Vries 

Berkeley 

Editor: 

I have received many phone calls and e-mail due to an article of July 25th inthe Daily Cal concerning my candidacy for the Berkeley City Council in District 6, concerning the statement to “give bicycles a little slack.” 

I'd like to clarify my position. First, I am not a cyclist; I drive 60-80 percent of the time and walk the remainder of my trips. However, I would do everything I could to encourage bicycle usage, providing every amenity possible. 

Each bicycle on the road reduces the air pollution by hundreds of pounds. Not forgetting the elimination of all the engine noise each auto generates.  

Most of us cannot, or will not use bicycles as our major mode of transportation. For those who do, pitting their fragile one hundred to two hundred pounds of flesh against 2,000 to 8,000 pounds of solid metal, let's yield to them. When drivers encounter bicycles bravely negotiating our roads I'd like the auto to yield. 

It would improve relations between autos and cycles, if signs similar to the Park Service triangular signs (like on the Nimitz trail) were installed throughout our fair city. The Park Service bright yellow triangular signs depict “pedestrians yield to horses and bicyclists yield to pedestrians and horses.” 

Our replication of these signs would illustrate “bicyclists yield to pedestrians and wheelchairs, and autos yield to bicycles.” Autos and bicyclists must yield to walkers in the crosswalks. This law should be enforced vigorously. Too many pedestrians are maimed each year by collisions in the crosswalks and intersections.  

Norine Smith 

Berkeley