With car sharing now being approved and offered in the
city, the car-less will still be able to get by without owning a car, but
will now have plenty of opportunities to drive one whenever they get the
urge to do so. Seems like a step in the wrong direction, does it not?
I question the validity of the premise that UW students don't own cars. Last year, Tom Powell (then District 5 Alder), presented a resolution to the PBMVC to extend the maximum time a car can be parked on a public street from 48 hours to 96 hours. The reason he wanted this resolution was that he thought that while plenty of students regularly took the bus to campus, forcing them to move their car every 48 hours (to hunt for an empty space, and frequently decide that they'd be spending less time in their car if they simply drove to campus) was basically an incentive to drive every 48 hours.
The PBMVC rejected the proposed resolution, but I think the fact that Alder Powell thought this was a problem that needed solving is strong evidence in the case against assuming students do not own automobiles in significant number. surprisingly, all the Members of the PBMVC seemed to agree that the city should not expand the on-street parking entitlement to accommodate this request.
That issue aside, even if in the short term UW students drive more, providing an environment where Students can learn to build their lives around a car-share rather than full-time ownership may prove beneficial in the long term. Perhaps this could delay, or entirely inhibit their "need" to own an automobile. A recent channel3000 poll suggests that only about 25% of people would even consider participating in the program. I believe that number would be far higher today if the respondents had experienced a car-share lifestyle sometime in their past.
_______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
