A resident provides an environmental perspective to parking.
I think it necessary to throw into the complex mix of opinions regarding this issue, the important perspective of air pollution; traffic congestion and having a ‘greener’ downtown. Fundamentally, do we want to continue encouraging people to drive, often and usually, alone, in their steel and glass and plastic vehicles, to work and shop? Should we not, as so many cities are doing, try to find ways to discourage people from doing that, and instead have them using public transportation and active transportation? If you check with planning officials in London, Amsterdam, New York City, Beijing…all the major urban centres of the world, are they not wrestling with the need to severely limit parking availability in order to dissuade private cars in their cities?
Here’s a link to a recent article in the Globe and Mail, related to this issue:
I sympathize, sort of, with the merchants’ need to attract business by having nearby parking available for their customers, but, the environmentalist in me cries out that we can’t keep assuming everyone has the ‘right’ to drive everywhere and anywhere, simply to go shopping or go to work. Don’t we all know about global warming, and the role of traffic (cars, trucks, buses, etc.) plays in it? We have a responsibility to our children and grandchildren to do what we can, right now, to take measures to curtail driving.
I’m quite sure this opinion will be considered ‘flaky’ and ‘idealistic,’ but I still thing it needs to be voiced and weighed. DM