On Wed, 2004-05-26 at 12:11, Steve Nelson wrote:
> > Mike Jensvold
> > East Isles
> wrote
>
> > How about an ordinance banning or taxing stores that have more than a
> > certain square footage of retail space, or more than a certain number of
> > surface parking lots? How about a land value tax (
> > http://www.earthrights.net/docs/kunstler.html ) that discourages wasting
> > valuable urban land as automobile storage?
How about simply altering the Minneapolis Zoning Ordinances so that
automobiles aren't favored?
The Code is disgusting:
541.220. Bicycle parking.
(a) Uses. A minimum of four (4) bicycle parking spaces may be provided in
lieu of not more than one (1) required automobile parking space.
(b) Location. Bicycle parking spaces and racks shall be located in a convenient
and visible area no farther from the principal entrance to the building served
than the closest automobile parking space. With the permission of the city
engineer, bicycle parking may be located in the public right-of-way. Bicycle
parking may be provided within a building, but the location shall be easily
accessible for bicycles.
(c) Covered spaces. If accessory automobile parking spaces are covered, bicycle
parking spaces shall also be covered.
There is no point at which bicycle parking is required. There is no way to avoid
providing motor vehicle parking.
If I owned a business (lately I've been dreaming of a North Mpls bike shop or bike
oriented cafe), I wouldn't want to have to provide a single parking spot for
motorists. But the law forces me to do so.
And no matter how many bicycle parking places I provide, I cannot reduce my obligation
to the motorists by more than a single space.
It's an offensive interference with the free market.
If on-street parking is a problem, rather than force businesses to provide motorists
with places to park their death traps, perhaps the solution is to simply ban on-street
parking in problem areas except by permit.
> > We need to fight hard to stop the walmartization of wages and our urban
> > communities.
Why is that? As I understand it, a great number of people like shopping
at Wal-Mart. They find the prices, goods, and service to be preferable
to the alternatives.
Personally I conclude that many of our zoning ordinances (especially
those that require small businesses to provide black top for the parking
of motor vehicles) are quite anti-small-business. Remove these
anti-competitive barriers to entry for small businesses and Wal-Mart
would have a much harder time competing on a fair playing field.
Other than giving small businesses a chance to flourish instead of
forcing them out of business (or to never open in the first place), I
see no reason to "fight" Wal-Mart. Their customers and employees are
free actors in society and have chosen to shop and work there. It is not
your place to force these people to change their lives because you don't
like it.
> Great idea! The taxes raised could be set aside for programs designed to
> reduce dependence on the automobile and explore alternative means of
> transport like LRT and PRT.
That is a horrible idea. I don't want my taxes raised one penny. Not
directly, not by proxy, not by any means at all. Every day I go to work
and the first 3.5 hours out of 8 go to keep the government from throwing
me in jail for tax evasion.
I especially don't want the government wasting my earnings on garbage
like PRT and LRT. That choo-choo train in South Minneapolis is a useless
drain on the transit system. Look at how much roadway has been given
over to this single use. How many people were those roadways carrying
before LRT? How many will they carry once LRT opens (assuming it ever
does)?
PRT is even worse. Pie-in-the-sky, Jetsons-esque fantasies about miracle
transportation systems. If PRT is such a great idea, it should be able
to attract investors and research money from someone looking for a
"socially responsible" investment. Meanwhile, Toyota is doing more
intersting things with concept cars by far. Seen their PM?
(http://auto.howstuffworks.com/toyota-pm.htm)
Do you know how much money the government spent on LRT? Over 700 million
dollars. That amount of money boggles the mind. Do you know what? You
could have bought one million metro area citizens a $700 bike each for
that price. You could have widened a large number of roadways to make
biking more comfortable and safe. You could have perhaps resurfaced all
the bikeways in the City so that they are actually worth riding on. You
could have expanded bus service in new and interesting ways.
Instead we get a choo-choo train that goes all of twelve miles, along
some routes that were already fairly well served by buses.
Meanwhile I don't know that you've noticed, but Metro Transit has closed
a significant number of stops along Central Ave NE. That's right.
Instead of the decades-old system of being able to catch your bus at any
corner along the route, you will now have to find an active bus stop and
walk to it. Fabulous if it's raining.
If you want to fight Wal-Martization, convince their customers to shop
elsewhere and their employees to quit (don't bother starting with me, I
have no intention of shopping or working there). Please don't invent new
taxes and grow the government any further. Four bloated layers riding on
the citizens' backs is enough.
When it comes to transportation, the future is the future, not the past.
Fixed infrastructure systems have numerous faults and few advantages
compared to open access systems. One would think that a City just stung
by a labor strike at its transit monopoly would be looking for ways to
control this sort of thing in the future, not expose the citizens to
more risk of denial of service by further centralizing the providers of
transit.
-Michael Libby, Cleveland neighborhood,
www.andsoforth.com
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