‘Mindless Cruelty’

According to your Sunday edition, there are people in Rancho Penasquitos who actually believe they could save time getting to Interstate 15 (or Sorrento Valley) if Camino Ruiz were extended across the middle of Penasquitos Canyon (“Carving Up Los Penasquitos Canyon,” March 16). Let me tell those people, we who live in Mira Mesa already get clutch-riding, exhaust-breathing, rush-hour clog on a regular basis driving on Ruiz and Mira Mesa Boulevard to get to either destination.

Another consideration makes things worse: with the addition of all those roads, the canyon wildlife will be penned into the canyon completely. (You will see dead deer, coyotes and other animals for months along your new roads, as we did along Mira Mesa Boulevard when it was completed.) Because Penasquitos Canyon is all these animals will have, to plunge a useless road through the middle of their refuge can be nothing other than mindless cruelty.

Let’s show some sense, at least where Ruiz is concerned; stop it where it is now. Stop it, for the canyon, the wildlife in it and the people on both sides.

DR. LAWRENCE R. CARLETON

San Diego