Mr. Avidor asks: >. ...So why encourage people to drive > their cars downtown by building a heated parking garage into the > library?
The short answer is that to have a successful project - in fact, to have a successful city - we have to promote all modes of travel. We need people to be able to get to where they need to go and it needs to be easy and convenient. But in saying that, easy and convenient means different things to different people. Some people will walk. Some will drive. Some will take mass transit (bus or LRT). Some will bike. A successful project accommodates everyone. One of the fundamental things we have talked about with this library from the beginning is the democratic ideal - that is has to be a place for everyone. We have had extensive discussions about the myriad of ways that this concept is important. Access - accommodating all modes of travel - is one of those ways. Without a place to park, we make it much more difficult for certain groups to use the library. The elderly, people with young children, and persons with disabilities would top my list of people who we have made the library an unfriendly place if we do not accommodate parking. I also think that libraries are different from other destinations because libraries are fundamentally about hauling things. You haul books in and out. I asked the head librarian about how many books the average person takes out and she said 5-6. Even five or six books, if they are big (even one of those coffee table books) weigh a lot. We need to make it easy for people to take books out of the library and for many people who are going to check out books, driving is going to be the preferred mode. As I have argued, the first criterion for decision-making about the library is what will create a good library. Once we answer that, I think we can talk about other goals that we want to achieve. But what makes for a good library and a good library patron experience has to be first and foremost in our minds. Carol Becker Longfellow _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
