By : Jim Knowles : 3/14/07

It’s hard to learn when you can’t hear yourself think. Until this year, the athletic fields at San Lorenzo High have always been surrounded by trees. The chatter of the players was all you heard, over the soft hum of a distant freeway.

Then last year, CalTrans tore out the trees that buffered the school from I-238. They removed over 200 eucalyptus to add an exit lane. The difference is like night and day.

Without the trees, the freeway is a lot closer than it seemed — right along the edge of the campus — and the noise is overwhelming. “Last year it was a lot quieter, but this year there’s so much noise and honking. It’s really distracting,’ said senior Gloria Martinez, who plays on the Rebels soccer team.

“You can’t even hear a coach at practice,” adds Rosie Dixon, also a 12th grader. Not only that, the freeway noise is distracting classes. “Environment matters — a quiet environment — and when it’s hot you can’t open the windows in the classroom because of the noise,” said San Lorenzo High principal Sheryl Cambra.

Cambra has a suggestion for CalTrans. “I would invite any (CalTrans) official to come here and try coach or teach a P.E. class,” she said. Cambra spoke at a press conference last Friday at the campus, along with state Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, who called on CalTrans to build a sound wall — which was in the plans when the project was first presented to the public.

CalTrans officials said the plans were changed by 2004, taking the soundwall out of the project. But that news didn’t seem to reach the public’s attention. People at the high school say they just recently discovered the freeway widening project would not include a soundwall.

So what was CalTrans reason for taking the soundwall out of the project? “It’s not cost-effective.” “The sound wall was removed during the initial process because it was determined to be not cost effective,” said Cal Trans official Mark Zabaneh.

CalTrans uses a criteria based on the cost and the decibel level the wall reduces, Zabaneh explained. Instead of building a 14-foot high soundwall that’s 2,300 feet long, the current plans call for a metal guard rail 29 inches high, or just over two feet. That doesn’t go over well with the high school, or with Hayashi.

“Now that the project is underway, we find that the soundwall has been replaced by a metal fence,” Hayashi said. “We want to start the conversation of getting the soundwall here for the students. To learn you need a healthy environment.”

Students Call for Action The issue was almost swept aside, but then Mr. Fishman’s Environmental Leadership Action Class got into it. The class invited CalTrans to come over to discuss it and CalTrans accepted. “We understood they would build a soundwall and put in big trees,” Fishman said. “But it turned out there would be no soundwall and just shrubs or small trees.”

Fishman said the class was perplexed with the official explanation: “budgetary constraints.” “Our budget is really tight on this project because of all the cost increases,” said Christine Monsen of the Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority, which oversees projects funded by the Measure B transportation bond.

But now Zabaneh says that CalTrans is willing to work with the school district, whether it’s planting trees or building a soundwall. And Zabaneh does have a point on the soundwall. CalTrans studies show that a soundwall only has an effect within 300 feet of the wall. Beyond that distance, the sound travels over the wall and the freeway noise is just as great as if there were no wall.

That means part of the athletic fields would be sheltered by a wall but the classrooms wouldn’t. Trees would appear to be the answer, but CalTrans has built a freeway shoulder on the land where the trees once stood. So a new grove of trees might have to be planted on school property.

“There will be a follow-up project,” Zabaneh said. “We’re here to work with the school district so it will be a collaborative effort.”