Despite the pandemonium of road construction and ravenous Kaiju, students did their best to ignore the chaos in order to get to their lectures on time.
Photo by: Daniel Clinton
Last Tuesday evening, UCSD announced to the entire campus via email that construction would result in road closures near the campus’s nature reserve next to MCAS Miramar after researchers at the reserve allowed their Kaiju specimens to escape the confines of their observation area.
“I’m really thankful that they sent out these notices,” explained student Ericka Johnson. “I mean, what if I decided I wanted to go drive over to check out the Marines’ jet engines? I wouldn’t want to get stuck in that, would I? I’m not sure who this ‘Associate Vice Chancellor of Environmental and Building Services’ guy is, but I’d really like to thank him if I meet him.”
The notice explained that the closures will be necessary to allow the City of San Diego to repair damage to the road caused by university experiments. The notice detailed how the class 26 (b) (III) road would be brought up to city standards, in addition to repairing damage to dual utility lines running at 49.6 cubic inches per Joule.
Professor of Biology Ryan Stableman told reporters, “Yeah … we’ve done a lot of stuff over there. After Jacobs built their fancy shake table, we geared up for the Kaiju Project. That caused a lot of damage.”
When asked to elaborate, Stableman confessed, “We just wanted to outdo Jacobs. We were able to genetically engineer some pretty beefy monsters, but they got away from us and destroyed just about everything in their path. I’m pretty sure the Marines stopped them though.”
To address safety concerns, the notice clarified that “flaggers will be present to direct traffic at times of construction.” It continued, stating, “Drivers may encounter a flashing signal at the nearby ramp with Interstate 15.” To mitigate possible issues, the construction workers will be using cone and trench plate technology, according to the notice.
Stableman adds, “I never really go over there, so I’m not sure what it looks like. But by the sound of it, I guess it could cause a traffic jam. I mean, it mentioned the 15.”
The notice didn’t add if any ramp closures would occur on Interstate 15, but it did encourage drivers to give themselves extra time to make their commutes.
Campus environmentalist, Jackie Glover, was discouraged by the plans, saying, “The street should be removed and made into an open space to accommodate the Kaijus. There’s no reason to even have this site. We really need to stop doing these terrible experiments.
“The site shouldn’t even be accessible to non-Kaijus,” Glover continued, suggesting she might plan a protest to attempt to stop
the construction.
According to the notice, construction will begin June 18, 2019 and will continue for approximately one month. A map of the project site was included in the notice, but readers are encouraged to use Internet Explorer to view it.
An updated version of the notice was sent out approximately 10 minutes later, correcting the title for one of the project managers mentioned in the notice.
