XPost: alt.autos.toyota, rec.autos.driving, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: alt.fan.michael-moore   
   From: bashley101@gmail.com   
      
   On 08/16/10 15:45, Sharx35 wrote:   
      
   > "The Real Bev"  wrote:   
   >> On 08/15/10 15:49, Ralph Mowery wrote:   
   >>> TibetanMonkey wrote:   
   >>>> 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.   
      
   Yes.  I need a couple of pair of sunglasses (regular plus those old-fart   
   glasses that fit over regular glasses and maybe one of the cheesy   
   plastic flat thingies that fit UNDER glasses).  I drive home (4 miles,   
   maybe) reasonably slowly on surface streets because I KNOW my vision   
   sucks.  That's probably what drunks say too, except my mental processes   
   seem more or less normal.   
      
   --   
   Cheers, Bev   
   ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo   
   "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However,   
     this is not necessarily a good idea...."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)