Speaking of rants (hahaha, don't be so modest socialisthorde), and how timely given the discussion topic...
In defence of Saskatoon's cars
By John Gormley, Special to The StarPhoenix September 24, 2010
About five years ago in this column I noted with satisfaction that Saskatoon, in addition to more and fuller restaurants, was actually starting to get what felt like a rush hour -- not 60 minutes worth, thank goodness, but something longer than the eight-minute drive home of days gone by.
Bearing no love for traffic jams, it was my view then, and now, that congested roads are simply a side-effect of Saskatoon being discovered by the rest of Canada. More people have come here and so have their cars.
Since then, as the economy has taken off
(we can thank our saviour Brad Wall and his apostles), the province's overall population has swelled by 40,000 people and we've become Canada's "it" province. And this sparks a good debate on what growth will mean for the vehicles you drive.
In most western North American cities, cars rule. And before enthusiastic earth muffins who have declared jihad on the internal combustion engine join with certain traffic planners to pick a fight with the car, let's keep a few things in perspective.
[...]
When the anti-capitalism and environmental issues fail, there's the urban quality-of-life issue: Cars make our streets busy and our road infrastructure expensive.
In Saskatoon, where at least a generation of traffic planners have lived by the mantra "go small or stay home," they've had to admit this city might grow larger than 175,000 people. Actually, that happened back in the 1980s, but they've been in denial ever since.
Hence, as drivers we've endured bad planning, poor engineering and a stunning lack of creative traffic design. Congestion and insufficient infrastructure aren't the fault of cars -- it's the fault of city hall.
(Awww, I feel your pain Gormley. Previous councils and their bureaucratic henchmen made a strategic blunder with social engineering bent on accommodating pedestrians and cyclists on the backs of wealthy motorists. The machine deserves better. It financially supports the civic services that are vital to maintaining our healthy and productive city)
Drivers pay financially for our cars and driving. Is it too much to expect governments to use our vehicle sales taxes, gas taxes, licence and insurance fees to support infrastructure?
(Sure, I'll concede to that...yawn)
Yet, the same people ready to blame cars for increasing costs have chosen not to allocate our money to make cities more accessible
(How do we measure that? Number of surface parking lots per hectare?). Again, this is not your fault or your car's.
This is not to say that it's a zero-sum game of either cars or transit/cycling/walking. It is important in a modern, progressive city to have an array of transportation choices for a variety of users
(That is far too soft of a position. We must crush their spirits, and thwart their extremely destructive agenda!).
But it is also important to be accountable for misdirected spending and the simplistic position that sees the car as the enemy.
Gormley can be heard Monday to Friday at 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on NewsTalk 650
© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix
Read more:
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/today...on+cars/3572165/story.html#ixzz10TONf1J1
________________
I did not see this one coming...ha!
So essentially, Gormely is trying to rally the disadvantaged to take a stand, to adopt an attitude of aversion towards the powerful lobbyists and special interest groups advocating for municipal policies that serve to protect vested interests and the status quo.
/sarcasm
I am no enemy of the car. I own one and drive it daily, with great joy I might add. But I acknowledge the value of curtailing my use of it. Gormley is from a different generation, with a different mindset. Himself, my parents, my friend's parents, and the entire boomer population will depart in a couple decades. And then what? My siblings, friends, and the younger generation will be saddled with debt and deteriorating infrastructure.
Thank you to all of you innovative, forward thinking post-war children. All that you accomplished while gracing this planet will be inherited by us, your children. However, you have failed to remind us why we should celebrate your decades of genuine short-sightedness as it relates to building communities.
I remain
cautiously optimistic.
Prev
I really think the city needs to focus heavily on alternative transportation or they are going to have a HUGE mess to clean up when the city actually becomes larger.
I haven't met a whole lot of teenagers who are any more enlightened. We are not designed to be long term thinkers at that age. 
and I am just what you describe. I my mate and my spawn get by with one car, and if public transportation were better, I could get by without that. We got by with one car that rarely left its parking spot when I lived in a larger city with better public transportation and public amenities and were considering getting rid of that car. For long trips we rented a bigger car. I have taken a bus to music and soccer lessons even in this transit desert of Saskatoon BTW. You wouldn't catch me in a frigid bus shelter at 6 am with an infant either, but what if the shelter were heated and closer to your home, and the bus came in 5 minutes rather than 25, and it drove a relatively direct route to your destination of what if there were an underground heated tube station? If it could get you there within 5 or 10 minutes of a car trip, the time you take warming the car would more than use up this time. I know this is a utopian vision, but I see our city declining into a dystopia, where even the car lovers are not happy. We "car haters" are even less happy. I only ask people to imagine that there might be a different way. I was not meaning my post to be judgmental of drivers, just the system that so strongly reinforces driving. 
Linear Mode
