XPost: alt.autos.toyota, rec.autos.driving, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: alt.fan.michael-moore   
   From: sharx35@hotmail.com   
      
   "The Real Bev"  wrote in message   
   news:i4c63g$u7s$1@news.eternal-september.org...   
   > On 08/15/10 15:49, Ralph Mowery wrote:   
   >   
   >> "His Highness the TibetanMonkey, Creator of the Movement of   
   >> Tantra-Hammock&   
   >> the Stationary Bicycle to burn the calories"   
   >> wrote in message   
   >> news:3312abff-929d-4eb1-bf43-54ba5461b81d@x25g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...   
   >>>  The "car culture" has little to do with culture or public preference   
   >>>  or convenience. CONVENIENCE IS HAVING OPTIONS, ie. cars, public   
   >>>  transportation, bicycles, etc.   
   >>>   
   >>>  The car is about BIG MONEY, and this goes together with Darwinian   
   >>>  Capitalism. Yep, and we fell in the "trap" of the Hungry Lion today.   
   >>>  We went to this high school contest in the early hours (not fancy   
   >>>  opera concert time) and when we came out of the parking lot three   
   >>>  hours later they charged us... 22 bucks! (That's American dollars)   
   >>   
   >> Bad to pay that just to park for a high school function.  I have quit   
   >> going   
   >> to some things I would normally go to for the parking reason.  It is not   
   >> too   
   >> bad to pay a reasonal fee for parking, but when the parking is as much as   
   >> the fuction I go to, I don't usually go.  There are other similar events   
   >> I   
   >> go to that don;t charge for parking.   
   >> One thing the shopping malls did for the city I live is was to make them   
   >> get   
   >> rid of the parking meters.   
   >> The malls didn't ,but the city store owners complained and the city   
   >> removed   
   >> the meters.   
   >   
   > Worked exactly the opposite here.  Parking was free until the mall was   
   > constructed.  Parking was free in the mall for quite a while, but you had   
   > to be willing to hold your breath from your car to the mall entrance or be   
   > overcome by fumes -- I guess it never occurred to them to ventilate the   
   > n-layer below-ground parking structure.  They also needed every 3rd or 4th   
   > space for a support pillar, yet another bit of stupidity.   
   >   
   > They tore down the old mall, built a new "multi-use" structure on its   
   > corpse, and charge for parking.  They also installed meters on the street.   
   > Then they swapped out the coin-meters for credit-card meters. Now they   
   > have parking kiosks one or two per block -- you feed your CC into the   
   > kiosk and it does something.  I don't know what it is because I rarely   
   > need to go downtown and have a bicycle.   
   >   
   > The doctors' offices parking lots charge nothing for the first half hour   
   > (yeah, right) and $5 or $6 for anything over that.  You're stuck because   
   > there's no on-street parking at all for blocks around.  I ride my bike to   
   > the docs' too, unless I'm getting my eyes dilated.   
   >   
      
   In which case, you drive a MOTOR vehicle there, right?  I discovered, that   
   with sun glasses, I could drive just fine after I had my eyes dilated.   
      
      
   >   
   > --   
   > Cheers, Bev   
   > =============================================   
   > If you are going to try cross-country skiing,   
   > start with a small country.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)