Comment 65933

By Brandon (registered)
Posted July 10, 2011 at 09:53:12 in reply to Comment 65926

And the market isn't influenced at all by politics, is it? Suburbs with no stores in them, huge shopping plazas with massive "free" parking lots, no bike lanes, no bike racks, lousy public transit...

Essentially a decision was made back in the 20s and 30s to market the car and push very hard to make it the only feasible means of transit for many people, and as long as gas was cheap it was doable. In fact it worked so well that some people think it was just market forces at work.

Gas, however, is no longer nearly as cheap as it was, insurance is getting ridiculous so the cost of cars is rising dramatically, even when you aren't driving it it's depreciating. Never mind time spent sitting in traffic not moving.

Compare that to a bike. For a hundred bucks you get a decent bike, for less than a hundred bucks in maintenance a year you can keep it running and get tremendous health benefits from it. And at what cost to the city? Lanes are repainted all the time, so add a bike lane network. Bike racks aren't that expensive, so instead of forcing businesses to have two parking spots force them to have a bike rack and a parking spot.

The bottom line is that you can't really carp about how the market has decided if one side is heavily subsidized.

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I am disappointment in you're grammar.

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