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This is indeed the problem! I am reminded of the anecdotal debate among engineers about what kind of engineer designed the human body. The conclusion was that it must have been a civil engineer, because who else would route a sewage system through a recreational area?
There are certainly other ways to build a park rather than to route seven-odd lanes of freeway traffic through it. If tunnelling under the park would not have been possible, it would have been better to move 279 north to the edge of the park instead. The land immediately north of the bridges seems to be primarily parking lots anyway.
I don't think that people are usually fooled by trees and embankments and it is indeed absurd that (eyeballing the map) something like twenty percent of the park is freeways and interchanges. I brought up road noise multiple times in my other posts and you did not respond to this point, so I must imagine that there is indeed a noticeable road noise in the park.
I've spent my fair share of time in parks regrettably close to freeways. Freeways are noisy, they emit pollution, being near them plain sucks. We only tolerate them because they benefit motorists, and while perhaps we can say that the pedestrians should take the L in this case, it really seems like a bridge too far to say that the freeway benefits the people trying to enjoy some time in the park because it's a nice overpass. Again, if the freeway did not pass through the park, I cannot imagine that anyone would miss it.
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