Letters to the Editor
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Re: Dictatorial Elites
elwin9 raises an interesting point regarding forcing lifestyles onto others. This is true - everybody has their own ideas how they want to live, and city planning affects that directly. There is no way around it though - forcing people to make room for parking spaces is also enforcing a certain livestyle - it adds to everybody's costs and leads to sprawl. Which makes it impossible to go shopping without a car.
So forcing lifestyles is not an avoidable problem - but there is no reason for that to be dictatorial. In can in fact be done democratically - by freely discussing ideas and by voting for those politicians whose ideas of city planning appeal to you.
There is no reason for anyone to stop discussing the topic and to stop pushing for their ideas, just because your preferences are different. Come up with your own ideas, and push for your own plan then.
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FREE ISN'T ALWAYS GOOD
A parking place for everyone and everyone to a parking place. Even a simple 'free' like this has invisable but tangible costs. I learned as a small child that nothing is free. Costs are eventually passed along to the consumer. Everyone pays but the person at the bottom that has no one to pass those costs along to, pays the most. It's the poor shoppers at Walmart that pay for our parking not the large suppliers. 'Free', although it sounds good, is usually paid for by those least able.
We hear a lot of talk these days about 'free' health care. How scary is it that we can see the problems in 'free' parking but ignore the monster that will be 'free' health care? Wouldn't healthcare fit into the statement fom the article regarding parking requirements creating great harm? It may go something like this - National healthcare regulations create great harm: they subsidize doctors, distort medical choices, warp healthcare delivery, increase medical costs, burden low income households, debase hospital design, damage the economy, and degrade the health of the nation.
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Why not bike?
I don't want to rant, but all the complaints about what can't be done on a bike (except for actually carrying an actual week's worth of groceries) describe things I already do, and so do other people, and I'm not young, and we've got three kids. It helps to already know that it can be done; I got (re)started because I had raced when I was a kid, and so I knew not only that ten miles was easy once I was in shape, I also knew that I should be able to do it in under 30 minutes (outside of traffic and lights, of course). Getting back into good enough shape was hard work that took a few weeks.
So, yes, I bike, in the summer, in the winter, in the rain. I avoid the dark because people in cars don't realize how bad their vision gets. I have a cargo bike, because I DO want to carry things (six bags of groceries, or two kids, or a folding ladder). My bike's not cheap, which is the other problem -- if you don't know that you CAN do it, how much money are you willing to risk on the effort?
Bad knees? My two best friends have had rotten knees from their teens and twenties, and their doctors always told them to ride bikes whenever possible. Most people with knee problems that I know, are helped by riding a bicycle.
Bad heart and lungs? A friend, who "should have been dead at age seven", has half the cardiovascular capacity of a woman her age (40s). She bikes to work, six miles one way, she's pretty sure it keeps her alive. We chaperoned (on bikes) a bunch of boy scouts on a 300-mile bike trip. My grandfather, in later years, had rotten circulation, and spent many hours on a stationary bicycle.
Winter? Studded tires, balaclava, gloves, wind shell, and maybe tights. Maybe you're not sure it's really going to work and fear the cost, so do what I did -- just keep riding, and find ways to cover the bits that get cold. Turns out it works fine.
I cannot fault fear of traffic, because when I was younger and less careful, I did get hit a couple of times, and it sure did hurt. Nonetheless, it is estimated that not-biking kills you, on average, two years sooner because of the reduced exercise (your personal mileage may vary, that is the average result). Wear a helmet, dress as gaudily as possible, pick your routes carefully, use as much light as possible at night. Be very careful of turning traffic, and don't run lights and stop signs.
People also need to understand that this is not a religious, 100%-purity issue. If you bike for 50% of your trips (about what I do), you are using 50% less parking, emitting 50% less CO2, sending 50% less money to OPEC. That's not chickenfeed.
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Anonymous 09:08
Wow Parking = healthcare. That's one of the biggest stretches I've seen. And so totally wrong too! You must be proud.
First, no-one is talking about FREE healthcare.
Second, you don't think the insurance industry is providing many of the distortions you list? If not, you didn't really bother to think about this much. And if that's the case, why would anyone pay attention to your rediculous postulations anyway?
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The Real Cost of Parking - Millions Dead!
No one has mentioned the real cost of parking. In 2001, 3000 people died in the attack on the World Trade Center. To avenge these deaths (and to pick up a few billion barrels of oil on the side, America invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. These invasions killed a million or so people including a few thousand Americans. Many people would agree that these attacks were blowback from American domination of oil producing countries in the Middle East.
3000 dead = 1 million dead.
Every year, year in an year out, 43,000 Americans die in traffic accidents and about 2.8 million are injured. Around the world 1.2 million die in traffic "accidents" every year. Yet this astounding carnage results in no serious discussion about giving up the West's obsession with the private automobile. It should not be "drive to work" it should be "die to work". Yet poster after poster is coming up with "reasons" why they should keep their car. Is this not a little self-defeating if not actually crazy or stupid?
When can we expect the invasion and occupation of GM and Ford?