Quote:
Originally Posted by Millstone
I like drive thru ATMs. What's your beef with them? Also in Thunder Bay there is a drive thru pizza joint.
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1) Drive thrus encourage people to drive, which in turn fosters a demand for wider roads (like Main st), more freeways (Red Hill), and more parking lots (downtown Hamilton and the Mountain).
2) More people driving leads to less pedestrian-friendly communities, worse air quality, less demand for good transit infrastructure (why does it take forever to get from where I live near downtown on a Saturday or Sunday to the Mountain area?), more noise from vehicles, higher temperatures from all the pavement and concrete (a recent post - can't remember where - noted that the temperature is several degrees higher in the city than the countryside), a less healthy population, and all of the aesthetic/economic nastiness that goes along with that. I should add that more people driving also drives (no pun intended) up the price of fuel so that even people who have made an environmentally-conscious decision to get rid of the car end up paying more for food and basic services.
3) If you have to walk by one (heaven forbid!), a bank with a drive thru takes up usually twice as much streetfront space, and is much uglier to look at - the banks downtown are by and large nicer from a pedestrian's perspective. Banks, I'm sure, love the fact that they don't have to hire as many tellers, but those costs end up being extended to taxpayers and consumers anyways - they have to pay to insure and fuel their vehicles, and everybody pays more taxes so that city infrastructure (lights, sewage, policing, etc.) can cover kilometers of highway-side big-box stores and parking lots.
4) I think most people would admit that a city's reputation stands or falls on the reputation of its downtown. Haven't suburban malls and drive-thrus and freeways (and the people who want them - this is a democracy after all) been a huge part of the reason why downtown Hamilton is what it is?
Of course, if you have the money to live in an air-filtered house and drive an air-conditioned car, and happen to like the way giant, mostly-empty parking lots look, happen to own a bank with a drive-thru or a paving company, dislike the very idea of downtowns, or simply have little or no conscience regarding passing all of these environmental, economic and health problems onto your children, grandchildren, the poor, etc., I wouldn't expect any of this to bother you.
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