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Confession/vent
Last night on our run, I broke down in sobbing tears. We had gotten through an area of construction in a nearby neighborhood, where the city is more than doubling the size of a road--I don't know if it will go from a 2 lane to a 4 lane road, but I do know there will be sidewalks on both sides of the road. Now, I do sort of agree with the sidewalks--but only a little--I'd prefer ONE sidewalk than 2, but the size of the road, to me, is DEVESTATING to homes along this road and more importantly, to the beautiful landscape the road once had. It had been a tree-lined road--which made shoulders softs and really dangerous quite frankly--but it's also a short length of road--less than a mile--maybe only actually 200 yards or so, but now, since many of the trees were within 10 feet of the existing roads, my guess is that no fewer than 40 very large, fully mature trees have lost their lives. All these homeowners have lost (though I'm assuming they are at least getting paid for the land?) 1/2 of their very charming front lawns. Many of the trees (and other plants, bushes, etc) were there as natural barriers to the road. Generally, I avoid this road like crazy now--I won't drive down it (the last time I did, I yelled at the tree cutters and called them "Murderers"--I quickly realized that really wasnt' fair to them, so I just re-route myself now) and whenever DH and I do run down the road, I keep my vision as low as possible--basically I only look up enough to see DH's feet in front of me and I try to avoid concentrating on my periphery. I know, not the safest, but I've been trying to avoid breakdowns like last night.
I lost it, when DH and I got to a section of road that was already CRAZY wide with PLENTY of safe shoulder, yet, they felt they still had to widen it more, add the unnecessary sidewalk there, and cut down 2 final, large, beautiful trees. 
I *think* Dh understands where I'm coming from. He just doesn't understand why I would get so upset over something that I have no control over. He DID think it was a sad that I cry more when trees get cut down than when some people die. And that's true. Ouch.
Re: Confession/vent
It's really pretty sad/funny though. We can't plow our roads when it snows, we have pot holes the size of small swimming pools, but by golly, we're not even going to CONSIDER feasiblity issues (the fact that 1 sidewalk to no where is sufficient vs. having 2 sidewalks to no where) or alternative options that allow sidewalks to be built AROUND existing objects !! Further ironic since the word "green" is in the name of the city!!
That's really sad, and I totally see where you're coming from. I came up to an intersection I see every day on Monday morning, and they had clearcut a huge portion on the other side, presumably to expand the shopping center. It made me tear up, and if I hadn't put a cheery song on immediately I would have cried. (I did that so I wouldn't be a tear-stained mess walking into work).
I had a big breakdown to DH a few weeks ago about the environment. I had just gotten a whole ton of bad environmental news, including learning about the USDA's plans to release GMO alfalfa, I had researched the trash in the North Pacific Gyre that's the size of Texas, palm oil killing orangutans, and had seen that slideshow on the Earth Top Ten Most Polluted Areas or something like that. I just broke down crying about how the Earth is irreperably (sp) broken, there's no way to fix it and no.one.cares. It was a really bad day...