My question to Mr. O'Toole, why do you stay in Portland if you dislike your City so much. He keeps comparing it to Communist Russia. I guess his proposal is to buy all Americans a Toyota Prius, based on what he kept saying.
OK, now he's completely lost me because now he's advocating for "driverless cars." Driverless cars! Wow, this guy is actually taken seriously by some...? Well, it's been an entertaining talk & I can't wait for Q&A... Aaron ________________________________ From: Matt Logan <[email protected]> To: pddiscuss <[email protected]>; Bikies <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, March 24, 2010 8:04:27 AM Subject: Re: [Bikies] Randall O'Toole in Madison tomorrow (Wed) evening at UW And I sent this letter to the Editor on Monday: Randall O’Toole is a senior fellow at the CATO institute and he has a new vision for transportation in America: Driverless cars. This vision is from a 1939 World’s fair exhibit called “Futurama” that was sponsored by General Motors. While driverless cars would have a lot of benefits those benefits only go to people who do a lot of driving. And that is the problem. Studies show that a growing number of Americans are looking to do less driving and live closer to daily needs that are within a quick walk, bus, or bicycle trip. This runs counter to the world of Futurama, where daily needs are ”widely separated for convenience”. O’Toole likes to make fun of the expense of living in human-scaled communities, but that expense is the result of development patterns that have restricted compact development. The fact that a growing number of people are willing to pay the premium of living in compact development suggests that we need to focus on building more if it instead of on increasing mobility as O’Toole prescribes. While a new round of improved national mobility might help companies like General Motors (a major sponsor of the CATO institute), it has the potential to harm our environment and make us more dependent on foreign sources of energy. Focusing on improving human-scaled mobility will meet the needs of a growing number of Americans by helping them save money on transportation in a way that reduces our energy and environmental problems. You can view "Futurama" here: GM Futurama - 1939 World's Fair - Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74cO9X4NMb4 GM Futurama - 1939 World's Fair - Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU7dT2HId-c (The quote about "Widely Separated For Convenience" occurs early in part 22) _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
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