LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Save Poinciana and Cypress Parkway from expressway
Will Poinciana become another Parramore, or another Winter Park?
In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway System Act, and a year later Florida started the construction of Interstate 4 from Daytona Beach to Tampa. In and around Orlando, communities of color and low economic circumstances suffered devastating affects due to the way expressway routes were chosen, while middle and upper-class communities were not. Two such communities were Parramore, the historical heart of the city’s black community, and Winter Park, the predominantly middle and upper-class community less than five miles east of Orlando.
The comparison to Poinciana and the Southport Connector Expressway today shouldn’t be lost in the comparison of disruption and decline of urban communities in 1965. Nor should it be lost in the concern of economic, environmental, and social impacts an expressway through the middle of a community will bring.
Interstate 4 through Orlando provides explicitly clear examples of both the decline of a disrupted community; Parramore, and the financial growth of a community that successfully proposed an alternative path for I-4 to the outskirts of Winter Park.
In 1961, Winter Park citizens successfully pressured the State Road Department in Tallahassee, and the Bureau of Public Roads in Washington D.C., to push the expressway path to the outskirts of the city. Residents became fully invested, people sent letters to newspapers, and the city’s civic groups joined the protest.
In Parramore, construction displaced over 500 properties. Its residents suffered a rapid decline in quality of life followed by an equally dramatic rise in crime and addiction. The population of over 10,000 in 1960 had dropped almost in half by 1980.
The construction of I-4 physically disrupted Parramore, as houses and commerce were destroyed and people were displaced. A gigantic, elevated expressway established a concrete division between Parramore and Orlando.
S p a r e d from destruction, and with citizens committed enough to fight, Winter Park has become a stately city, financially stable, and known for abundant parks, brick lined streets, museums, Rollins College, lakes, and fine shops up and down Park Avenue.
The residents of Poinciana must be as invested in this area, and equally as active, as were the citizens of Winter Park 62 years ago. We just need leaders and civic groups willing to speak out. We need politicians to put their constituents first. We need county commissioners and the Central Florida Expressway Authority Governing Board to hear us pleading.
William Dalton
Kissimmee
A case for going egg-free; not just price
Egg prices have tripled in some states in the past year, largely because of the slaughter of nearly 58 million birds sickened by bird flu.
Yet, no price can possibly justify the cruelty inherent in egg production. When chicks are hatched, all “useless” males are ground up alive or suffocated in large plastic bags. The “lucky” females are crammed five to a wire cage the size of a folded newspaper, where they are unable to spread their wings or display other normal behaviors. The wire floor cuts painfully into their feet, as the walls tear out their feathers. When their egg production drops after 18 months, they are simply ground up for pet food.
But there is more. Eggs contain saturated fat and cholesterol, key factors in incidence of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. They frequently carry food-borne bacteria, including Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, and Staphylococcus, which account for 1.3 million U.S. illnesses and 500 deaths annually.
Entering “egg-free” in a search engine returns tons of recipes for delicious, compassionate, healthful, eco-friendly egg substitutes and egg-free food products.
Tony Wells
Kissimmee
