If You Can’t Find a Place to Park . . .

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There’s no point driving into the city if there’s no place to park. It’s also hard to leave the city – in a car – if you can’t keep one there.Ā And that’s why city bureaucrats are getting rid of places to park.

Because they want people to walk – or take government-controlled forms of transportation, such as the bus or the train. For the same basic reason that government bureaucrats want your kids in their schools.

So that they are not under your control.

It’s not framed this way, of course. Instead, it is framed in terms of “arbitrary rules” (which government loves, when it suits) that require a certain number of parking spots be built for each new building built – so that they people who live or work or shop in those building have a place to park. So that they don’t have to walk.

So that they aren’t trapped – in the city.

If there’s anything these bureaucrats despise more than cars, it is the freedom to be able to use them – to escape them. The bureaucrats, that is. To not have the “mobility” they so often speak of. And so, an attack upon cars and mobility, the latter via making it increasingly onerous to own/use them.

They never put it this plainly, of course – for that would arouse resistance. If people understood, they would become angry. So the people are gaslit. Told that parking spots are “unfair” to those who don’t own a car by giving an advantage to those who do. Solution?

Disadvantage everyone!

Including, by the way, people who can’t walk – or ride a bicycle. The elderly and infirm. Those with kids to cart around. That’s ok. They can wait for the bus.

And there are ululations about “congestion” and the “climate crisis” – the latter having become the new, more urgent verbiage (just as mere “racism” has morphed into “systemic racism”) requiring urgent, no-time-to-think-about-them “solutions.”

At the federal level.

California (of course) Rep. Robert Garcia, who is styled a “Democrat” for the same reason that certain drugs were styled “vaccines” – in order to soft-sell the truth about what they are – is pushing legislation (rather than drugs, this time) that would “eliminate parking minimums for new affordable residential, retail, industrial and commercial construction. Separately, he introduced legislation to scrap parking requirements close to public transit.”

The latter begs the question never answered: How are people supposed to use “public” – that is, government – transportation if they cannot get to it? Cannot get home, after having used it?

Well, you miss the point.

It isn’t to make it easier to get into – and out of – the city. It is to – effectively – wall people into the city. And to corral them into it. If a person who has a job in the city cannot get to work in good time then he has the choice: Either move to the city or find a new job.

Problem solved!

Never mind the problem that creates – for people, who can no longer get to work. Or the businesses that depend on traffic – on people coming into the city to buy things.

But why then don’t those people live in the cities?

Because they don’t want to.

For a variety of reasons, chief among them that cities are more expensive, often dangerous places to live, where there is less – here it comes! – freedom. People move away from cities to find more of that – along with a better quality of life. It is the car that makes this possible. And that is why the car is under attack – and why such as “representative” Garcia – who, like all of he rest of them, does not represent anyone since he is directly answerable to no one, just like the rest of them – attack them from the periphery.

Parking rules deter developers and businesses that canā€™t afford to construct the required parking, and spaces that could have held apartments have instead been swallowed up by parking mandates.”

They of course only “deter” developers and businesses that crunch the numbers and arrive at the conclusion that they would lose money by not constructing parking spots for customers and tenants, who prefer not to shop – or rent – where there is no place to park.

A “professor of urban planning” – authoritarian titles always sound so blase, like “general secretary,” who also made a lot of plans” – named Donald Shoup wrote a book titled The High Cost of Free Parking, in which he writes, “… parking seems to take place in the reptilian cortex, the most primitive part of the brain responsible for making snap judgments about flight-or-flight issues, such as how to avoid being eaten.”

And: “I think the thing that triggered my interest was employer-paid parking. I was writing on equity and transportation, and thought it was so unfair that employers offer parking to drivers but nothing to everyone else. If you walked, you got nothing.”

Italics added, to make the point that the Left – and that’s what we’re dealing with, again – has been wheedling about “equity” and “fairness” for a very long time. It is only just lately percolating to the surface.

Shoup urges that “planners” make it harder to drive by making it harder – and more costly – to find a place to park. Just the same as “planners” are making it harder – and more costly – to buy a car, by pushing cars that aren’t electric off the roads. And where will people who live in cities where there’s no place to park – or charge – their electric cars do either of those things?

Ah, now you see the point!

. . .

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54 COMMENTS

  1. I’m in Contruction Management and cities in the NW (Portland-Seattle) require less parking slots than apartment units assuming dwellers will use bicycles not cars. The also require bike storage parking areas including grease traps in the drains due to that nasty chemical *grease* from those bicycle chains might get into the environment.
    Since covid and George Floyd private developers have stopped building in downtown cities, it is the outlining areas being developed. Unless it is low-income housing which the cities are now building with HUD help in lieu of fixing potholes in the street. BTW, that is the other way to get peeple out of cars…stop fixing the streets. Have you noticed this?

  2. “Thereā€™s no point driving into the city”
    Which is why I don’t unless I absolutely have to. 90% of my business is conducted in a nearby rural town. Some things are simply not available there, and I go to the nearest city for it, ten miles farther away. I hate every minute of it, except leaving.

  3. In my neighboring city of The Peopleā€™s Republic of Cambridge most street parking has been removed in favor of bicycle lanes. The obvious result being that the local merchants are losing tons of business, and will soon be OUT of business since there is no longer a way for a customer to pull over and run in for a quick purchase. The store owners have complained to the commies running the city to no avail, so in the not too distant future the streets will be lined with empty storefronts that no longer pay property taxes.

    • Government drones have no idea the level of foot traffic you need to offset the loss of parking and drive-thrus to a retail business. There has to be an incredible amount of foot traffic, even the busiest foot traffic in cities like New York isn’t often enough. And you have to have products that can be carried off, if its a larger item, yeah, there is no way for someone to take it with.

      It has to be very clear where the parking is as well. It’s one of the reasons why even small towns downtowns have problems keeping business. Often the parking is closer to the front door than a shopping center! The parking may be around the corner or out back, which often isn’t clear to the customer, so the parking of a shopping center, which is almost always right in front is a huge advantage, even if it turns out to be a longer walk.

  4. Mid-town Manhattan is $45 to $75 a day to park. Then walk or Uber, or rent the Citi bike. Youā€™d have to not value your life, or be the adventurous type, to take public transit, particularly the subway – Bernie Goetz canā€™t save you. Live there, pay $600 a month per parking space.

  5. Amerika is a rotting corpse – cities have decayed the fastest – where liberal policies are most intense. What is really funny two of Amerika’s most popular cities are abandoned – SFO and NYC – and the libtards are making policies ever worse for their own beloved cities.

    I can remember where San Fransisco was a destination – the trolleys on the steep hills or the Ghiradelli Chocolate on the wharf. SFO is now a bombed out shit hole – that wasn’t bombed by Russian missiles – but from liberal policies which made theft under $1000 a non-crime.

    Oregon is often affected by San Fran homeless political solution of passing out FREE ONE WAY tickets to homeless northbound on the I-5 to Eugene. With homes in San Fran well over a million dollars it is not hard to figure that homelessness is a permanent feature of those not well positioned in the age of never ending asset inflation.

    Plus we have millions and millions of illegal Mexicans streaming in, pushing up rents, and through their people, the drug trade and fentanal death crisis. All over California and Oregon are illegal drug cartel marijuana growing operations.

    So let’s ban gas ranges and gasoline cars, give blacks 3 million for being a slave in a past life, and keep running deficits forever. Sounds like a good plan for end times.

  6. The bicycle was invented in the early 1800’s during and nearing the end of the Little Ice Age. It was in 1815, the same year Mt. Tambora erupted to the sky, possibly to the moon. The following year, 1816 CE, was the Year of No Summer.

    Horses were expensive, feed was expensive, you need to stable a horse if you want to bit, bridle and saddle the horse.

    A bicycle didn’t have to be fed or stabled, a Frenchman in France invented a pedal-less two wheeled gizmo you could ride.

    Your 15 minute city will have rickshaw operators willing to haul you from here to there. Won’t even need a bicycle.

    One good thing about having land, you can grow your own food, maybe have a cow to milk and have a few chickens. Fish the river for some crappie.

    If you trek over to the grocery store on your e-bike, you have to realize that there are fishing vessels out on the ocean, tractors pulling implements to plant a good 150 million acres of cropland in some 10 states out there in America, you are swimming in gopher gravy all of the time, you’ve got it made in the shade. You don’t have to lift a finger to find something to eat.

    Be glad you have a grocery store in your 15 minute cage, you can thank your lucky stars.

    Something to denk about. Libertes philosophica, the right to think said Giordano Bruno.

    If you think about it, you can be starved out in no time. Your 15 minute city will be a gulag in a heartbeat.

    FYI: Geologic time scale

  7. ‘California (of course) Rep. Robert Garcia, who is styled a ā€œDemocratā€ for the same reason that certain drugs were styled ā€œvaccinesā€ ā€“ in order to soft-sell the truth about what they are ā€“ is pushing legislation …’ — eric

    What Garcia is — to fill in the blank — is a BiCom [Biden Communist], the US franchise of the ChiComs.

    Nearly heaved breakfast this morning upon encountering a photo of “Biden” and Zelensky, having a friendly tĆŖte-Ć -tĆŖte at the G7 meeting in Hiroshima.

    After “Biden” authorized F16s for Zelensky, the question they are discussing in Hiroshima is what “Biden” — personally — gets in return. Obviously, this requires in-person conversation in a venue that’s been scanned for bugs and operates under Chatham House rules.

    Yes, the grift goes on, as the US economy is looted down to the dregs. Welcome, my friends, to our dying BiCom kleptocracy. Get it while you can …

      • Updated an old song to commemorate the Battle of Bakhmut:

        It wasn’t me that started that old crazy Ukie war
        But I yelled out ‘Hell no’ to do my patriotic chore
        It’s true Volodymyr is not the man he used to be
        Ze-lennnnn-skyyyyyyyyyyyy
        You failed for all to see

        — Kenny Rogers, Ruby Don’t Take Your Love to Town

        Now can we have our $100 billion back?

        • I hear the Hew Hess Hay now has “advisors” in the Ukraine.
          Where have we heard that term before?
          Anyhow…tip of the hat, and apologies for stealing the melody (Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian), to the late, great John Prine.

          Well, I packed my bags and bought myself a ticket,
          Just to keep that Ukraine “free.”
          Hello, Kiev airport,
          And goodbye Tennessee.
          I just stepped down from the airplane,
          When I heard my captain say,
          “Whack-a, whack-a, nuke a city,
          Whack-a, whack-a, nuke a city,
          Would you like to play?”
          Hey!
          Let’s play dirty in the Donbass,
          We can bomb all day.
          Missiles fly in the eastern sky,
          You might die today.
          There’ll be cherry glowing isotopic sunsets,
          And probably be hella lot of beer.
          Let’s play dirty in the Donbass,
          Words I long to hear.

  8. “They never put it this plainly, of course ā€“ for that would arouse resistance. If people understood, they would become angry. So the people are gaslit. “- Eric

    People don’t get angry over things of substance or if they do it’s over something that affected them personally. Most today are graduates of indoctrination centers aka ‘schools’ or baby sitting centers which allow the peasants to slave away for their corporate owners. Don’t think you’re owned…. whats that plasticized card you have hanging around your neck?

    If we had long enough ears we would have ear tags like Eric sells. Of course there are different levels of ownership. Birth Certificates Social Security Cards indicate who owns you. The Feds in the USA,,, Real ID drivers licenses. The State or Provence that owns a share of you,,, Your paycheck or now pay stub usually has the order of ownership. Federal,,, State taxes. Your city/county is the real owner the property you think you own. Don’t pay these and soon you will find your owners. Try to resist,,, and the modern day plantation Drivers (with badges and guns) will whip you back in shape quickly.
    With the CBDC they will control/own everything you do, everywhere you go and everything you ‘purchase’. Said taxes will be automatically pulled,,, for your convenience, of course. No more 1040s or State forms. It will all be done for you,,, automatically!

    Then it won’t matter if you get angry or not.

    • And with CBDC they can create out of thin air a record your financial support for whatever “illegal” or “unapproved” enterprise they choose, and send you right to the gulag.

    • If you took the “jab” YOU ARE OWNED by the DNA patent holder since it is the DNA strand in the “jab” ingredients that is now in your system.
      The “supreme court” (I use that term loosely) has opined that DNA can be patented and controlled by the patent “owner”.
      This is no different than adjoining farmers who use non-GMO seeds who are sued by Monsanto or others when GMO plants are found on their land. It matters not that sometimes seeds migrate due to overspray or by other means. The patent owner owns YOU.

  9. From the linked CNN article: “A better policy, Brookings Institution researchers said in a 2020 report on parking minimums, would be to let developers and businesses decide how much off-street parking to build.”

    Seems to me that the correct libertarian position is to agree that the government should not mandate how many parking spaces a private developer must provide. Go ahead, Mr. Businessman: build that shopping complex with no place to park and see if anybody comes.

    • That’s an important point. I had been researching how to open a start-up microbrewery. Apart from the onerous licenses, one thing that I discovered about “location” is the accompanying requirement to provide a certain number of parking spaces.

      Come to find out, even out here in the sticks, the government uses that to favor large businesses over small start-ups.

      I can’t just say “here’s my location, *you* figure out where to park — I have x number and that’s all I can afford to provide.”

      And, rightly, people will tell you that it probably isn’t a good idea to have limited parking because you want to make it easy as possible for customers to attend your business.

      But it’s not left up to me to take my chances. The government steps in and says “for business type x, you need y parking spaces. period.” Or no business allowed.

      From my point of view, especially for a microbrewery with a small tap/tasting room, it would take a while to generate interest anyway. Then, as the business grew, I could think about expansion. Either expand the lot or move to a different location, bringing the customers with me.

      Anyway, that jacks up the start-up costs considerably and favors big-money businesses (who can afford to have huge lots with initially empty spaces).

      • Yes, XM, I’m pretty sure that you will know better how much parking you need than some useless government rule-maker who has never in his life produced anything that people would voluntarily pay their own money for.

      • A friend built student housing a block from the engineering, computer sciences and meterology buildings. Had to revise his design to 1/3 of the potential number of units (and reclassify homes that should have been bulldozed as “boarding houses”) because of parking space requirements. Never mind that it was easy walking distance and was closer to the classrooms than the dorms, X spaces required. Completely changed the payback on the project. He still got a good return (by charging tenants for parking spaces the lot’s gross margin was much higher than the rest of the project), but so much wasted space in a town with an eternal shortage of student housing.

      • Starting a business is daunting. The tax authorities, the health department and all of the other agencies that you must submit to are the reasons for the high business failure rate in this country. Miminum parking is part of it, but actively discouraging car travel is going to cripple any downtown business.

        Since I began driving, I have avoided doing business in major cities. It’s too croweded, the parking too expensive and too much of a hassle to access. Cities are a waste of time.

        Maybe abandoned smaller towns will make a comeback as people flee the larger places. Maybe I’m being optimistic.

        There are plenty of places due for a resurgence.

        • Agreed, Swamprat. When politicians are hostile to cars, it sends a clear message to business owners whose customers depend on them: “Locate somewhere else.”

    • Brookings Institute: another think tank bringing in the Brave New World, just like other think tanks and foundations

      • Hi Greg,
        But isn’t their conclusion correct in this case? Or do you believe that government drones should dictate how many parking spaces a private business must provide?

  10. I saw his kind up close in the mid-90s when I was on the local planning and zoning board. (I thought I could fight Leviathan from within…fool)

    At a regional meeting in South End Charlotte, NC a New Urbanist was giving a talk and slide show about the future of cities. When a slide came up with the “walkable” center city he said, “You’ll notice there are no cars in our center city. This is AFTER the revolution.” The assemble crowd erupted in laughter and applause.

    I knew then we were screwed. Try as i might to warn others I was written off as some sort of detracting, nay-saying crank.

    Some days I felt like the people at the end of the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man. Nobody listened, nobody cared. Now they’re coming for us.

    • Hi Mark,

      In re: “Some days I felt like the people at the end of the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man. Nobody listened, nobody cared. Now theyā€™re coming for us.”

      Amen, brother. I feel the same. I’ve been writing about this stuff for lo these past almost 30 years now. I have done so not just in terms of “what they’re doing right now” but also, by inference, what they plan to do tomorrow. People accused me of being a hysteric when I wrote that mandatory seat belts would lead to mandatory air bags; that DWI “checkpoints” would habituate people to having to prove their innocence of guilt – and not just at DWI “checkpoints.” That “masks” would lead to “vaccines”… and so on.

      It makes me think of what H.G. Wells supposedly wanted written on his tombstone:

      God damn you all. I told you so.

      • I only found your website, right around the outset of the covid hoax (via Lew Rockwell). It’s very interesting to follow the “More Stories” pop-up on the lower right-hand corner from time to time. Apart from seeing a good of the same folks in the comments, it’s really something (almost spooky) how you called all this shit, spot on!

        But, more importantly for me, I try to go back in time in my head (to match the date of publication of the article). “What was I thinking about it at that time? Thinking about it at all? What would I have thought, at that time, had I read the article back then?” (etc)

        TBH, my head was not ready back when a great deal of your articles were written. I would have thought, “yeah, lots of people are prophesying all manner of bad shit and talking about conspiracies.” I would not have accepted it to the degree that I should have or would now.

        Which makes me tune in more to what you’re saying these days.

    • So?
      A ā€œprofessor of urban planningā€ automagically becomes an expert in neurological and cognitive sciences, probably because he has a PhD (in economics), and can ask people to call him “Doctor.” And “Doctors” (actually, “Doctor-Gods”) know everything, don’t cha know.*

      “parking seems to take place in the reptilian cortex”

      No, “professor,” hatred of human beings takes place in *your* reptilian cortex.
      Makes one wonder if this is reality:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIY2g-hkU6A
      ————————————
      * Fighting a similar battle where I live.

  11. I actually agree with the professor. If a coworker receives a benefit and I do not, I should be compensated the cash equivalent. The whole salary+benefits pay package way of compensating employees is pretty sketchy anyway, because employers won’t tell you exactly how much that benefit is really costing them, only that you’re getting a premium of some sort. Not only that but some people will be sure to use the benefit even if not really needed (institutionalized hypocondria thanks to health insurance benefits), driving up costs for everyone. Back when I got “free” cable as an employee I’d rarely watch premium channels (and towards the end, any legacy television), and didn’t value them at all. If offered the cash difference, even only the wholesale price paid by the company, I gladly would have taken it instead. Where I diverge from the professor is that I believe negotiation for compensation should be between myself and my employer (or our agents), no laws necessary.

    Slime mold like Robert Reich always point out how the US worker is so badly underpaid but then won’t acknowledge the out of control benefits inflation, which is were a lot of your cost of living adjustment ends up.

    As for removal of parking, what happens to that revenue? Parking meters and tickets generate a tidy sum for the municipality. Take that away and they’ll need to make up the difference somewhere else. Stick it to the shopkeepers and commerical landlords again? Sure, why not? They’re all profiting unfairly, pulling money out of town right? So that little mom & pop bodega that depends on the office luch crowd now loses the lunch rush and sees their taxes go up. Retiring to Boca Raton starts looking better and better. Paving the way for another Walgreens to really extract money from the neighborhood…

    The libertarian answer is of course no public parking at all. Private firms would create optimized parking structures and compete for your dollar. Location and features would dictate price. This model does exist, and has for years. Most people park in the same lot and pay a monthy fee. They show up around the same time, an attendent takes their vehicle and parks it, then surrounds it with other vehicles, so closely that it is impossible to get it out without moving a bunch of other vehicles first. That’s OK, you’re going to be in the office until 5:00 anyway. Last time I used one of these lots was in Philadelphia. The attendent asked when I was going to leave (around 2:30) and put me in a spot near the exit. Had I said 7:00pm he probably would have surrounded my vehicle but I also would have paid less per hour too.

    • Yeah, it’s just like when they have those bathrooms with the wide doors and grab handles in the stalls so that the wheelchair-bound can use ’em! So if I go to work in such a place, how is it that Gimpy gets these extra benefits, and I get nothing, merely because I have functional legs?! Talk about unfair! I should be compensated.

      And those people who work on the 11th floor…they have elevators which don’t benefit me because I work on the first floor! And the company daycare? I don’t have sprogs….so I should get compensated the value of such a service.

      Really, if we actually got fair compensation, I should rightly be getting $839,286 a year. I mean after all, we live in America where everything costs so damn much! And why has all of our industry been exported to China and India?

        • Hey, when they had pay terlits, at least they were usually clean. Some guy can’t come up with a dime to take a crap…I don’t want to use the loo after HIM!

          The Lament Of The Scottis Pay Terlit:

          Here I sit,
          Broken-hearted,
          Paid my dime,
          And only farted.

    • “If a coworker receives a benefit and I do not, I should be compensated the cash equivalent.”

      But who is actually receiving the benefit from a parking space? It might actually be the employer – gaining an employee who would not be available otherwise.

      Businesses should be free to make their own decisions about providing parking to staff and customers. But what about libraries, police stations, public hospitals and other gov ‘service’ centers? No public parking at all? Or just abolish all of those institutions?

      • Exactly, Karalan! An employee is free to negotiate compensation/decide if what is offered is acceptable to him. There’s no gun to his head forcing him to accept any job (at least not yet…). The more government gets involved and decrees the terms of compensation; who gets hired; and under what circumstances they can be fired, etc. the more liberty we all lose, and the less control both the employee and employer have over what is rightfully theirs.

        And people think that all of the various government regulations “help” them…but in reality, they just make it harder to get a job, or rent an apartment, etc. because the property owner must be ever more careful, since once a relationship is initiated, the employee/tenant/etc. is given more (artificial) rights than the the property owner, and becomes a liability, since they are entitled to various privileges and “rights” by decree which they would not otherwise have had, and the employer/landlord must be extremely careful not to fulfill the terms of the negotiated contract, but rather to comply with all of the artificial BS imposed on them. Just like taxes and other ‘regulations’, it amounts to yet more wrongful taking/robbery/coercion.

        • Anything the state supplies whether “rights”, privileges, or “benefits” is WAY overpriced. And you aren’t allowed not to buy it.

          • Yep, John. It’s always the old “Offer you can’t refuse”. (Only instead’a kissing you on the cheek, like the Eye-talian Mafia, they f#^& you up the ass…). I’d rather have the Eye-talian Mafia IF we have to have any….

  12. You really canā€™t walk in a city either unless you want to be another crime statistic. In just about any metropolitan across the county the AGWā€™s will turn a blind eye to a ā€œpeacefulā€ mugging but will tackle you on the pavement if you dare light up a cigarette. What our ā€œbettersā€ offer us is Hell on Earth with no alternative choice. So much for the party of choice!

  13. Funny my comment disappeared.

    Shoup is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and an Honorary Professor at the Beijing Transportation Research Center. I guess we now know why he hates our 2 and 4 wheeled freedom of mobility devices.

    Shoup was born in 1938 so I’m pretty sure he’s not going very far on a bicycle. At $64.95 for his book that’s another book I won’t be reading either.

    People who think bicycles are great have never tried to move Sheetrock and 2X4s on one and you won’t be moving them on your local transit bus either.

    For that matter outside of Commiefornia there is a thing known as weather. Like rain, sleet, snow, wind. Just try doing your commute on a rainy windy day. FUN!

    Shanks mare for the poor, pedicabs for the middle class and Tesla’s for our betters.

    • Apologies, Landru –

      The spam filter has been putting regular posters’ posts into the trash lately. All because of Anglia-Julia….and “her” wonderful tips about how to make $65,000 at home each month.

      • I think that just happened to me.

        Some of my best, most insightful drivel ever! Cast into the incinerator with the rest of the garbage… LOL

      • Happening again to me today. No big deal. I often copy & paste my comment just in case. Or, I also think that maybe what I’m saying isn’t that important anyway.

        TBH, Anglia-Juila types bug the shit out of me. I think they’re part of the apparatus that really intends to marginalize and confound anti-establishment discussions more than anything else.

        So, no worries! I probably “talk” too much anyway! šŸ˜‚

        • Hi XM,

          Sigh…just found a few more that go5t “lost.” I am trying to figure this out. Meanwhile, I wish I could send send a punch through my keyboard – and take out Anglia-Julia-Gloria’s teeth.

      • Hi, the missing comments are back.

        Eric: “Anglia-Juliaā€¦.and ā€œherā€ wonderful tips about how to make $65,000 at home each month”.

        In a few more years UBI will pay $65,000 a month, of course it will buy the equivalent of 65,000 Kopecks or 650 Rubles or $8.07 as of today.

  14. “But why then donā€™t those people live in the cities?”
    Because there are few mammals that thrive in crowded conditions, and people aren’t one of them.
    “I was writing on equity and transportation, and thought it was so unfair that employers offer parking to drivers but nothing to everyone else. If you walked, you got nothing.ā€
    Equity, the race to the lowest common denominator. The bottom. Making us all “equally” miserable.

    • ā€œBecause there are few mammals that thrive in crowded conditions, and people arenā€™t one of them.ā€

      If you think that ā€œscience is real,ā€ why isnā€™t THAT science real? Oh wait, itā€™s only the science that supports certain narratives that is real.

    • ” If you walked, you got nothing.ā€

      Weren’t gas taxes supposed to be for road maintenance? So if you walk you paid nothing and shouldn’t complain about what people who’s gas taxes actually paid for the road use.

    • This rep is a total dope.

      Would he say drivers have to pay for parking, thus walkers should have their checks reduced?

      I guess “equity” only goes one way.

  15. From https://luskin.ucla.edu/person/donald-shoup : Shoup is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and an Honorary Professor at the Beijing Transportation Research Center.

    Well now we know why he hates our 2 and 4 wheeled freedom devises.

    At $64.95 his book I won’t be reading that book either. Looking at his age (born August 24, 1938) of about 84 years old and where he lives I wonder how he gets around? How much do you want to bet that he does own a nice car?

    I ride my bicycle most days for exercise but have you ever tried to move some Sheetrock and 2X4s on a bicycle or a bus? One won’t work and the other won’t let you on. So the only advantage of bicycles is no tags so no tickets until facial recognition comes in. Pretty easy to steal a bike also, cut the lock and go. Pedicabs for the middle class?

    • I converted my touring frame into a city cruiser, since my century days are pretty much behind me. I found a small carrying box that fits perfectly on my rear rack. I use it to pick up small items from the local grocery store and Ace Hardware. If it fits, I can buy it. Otherwise it will have to wait (and be bought elsewhere since I can drive further than ride).

      I see the Dutch cargo bicycles and laugh. They have to be some of the worst designed bikes I’ve ever seen, with complex linkages on the steering, and would be completely unusable as soon as the rider encountered a hill. Not a practical device outside of a pancake flat city.

      Cargo bike race in Amsterdam: https://youtu.be/379F2LSEx7E

    • Reminds me of Robert Moses who destroyed many NYC neighborhood’s to build high ways and bridges, without the approval of the people who lived there. The funny thing is he did not drive. He was driven around in a limousine so he could decide which neighborhood would be sacrificed to his vision. He used political power to seize property in the name of progress as he defined it.

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