City council is planning to add more parking lots in town. They hired an expensive consultant to make a list of potential new places to store cars. Note, our council did not ask the very expensive consultant if more auto storage will help to relieve bumper-to-bumper traffic or promote retail sales. Follow the money.
Our city council’s assumption is this will help relieve auto congestion. This concept is not new. It started in the 1930s in America and Laguna – bigger streets and plenty of parking. Meaning “there’s no there,” there. Thanks, Gertrude Stein. She said this in 1937. She said her childhood home in Oakland, Calif., no longer existed.
You get my point. Some forces want to make the town we love disappear and make it more like Newport Beach and Irvine. I think auto-centric suburban land planning looks creepy and feels creepy for the most part.
Michael Hoag, Laguna Beach
Responding to the letter re: ‘More Pkg not the answer’ recent studies and publications by those who study this issue have found that additional parking or roadway widening does not result in the intended effort to reduce congestion but actually contributes to increased congestion. So, instead of seeking a non-existent solution to an undefined problem, the useful approach would include defining in detail the condition to be improved. And this public condition of too many people and cars in too small a space means checking in with all those affected giving equal time to each. Community quality of living equal with community commercial interests equal with those seeking relief from increasing heat equal with all levels of income equal with public safety and resources, etc.
Considering current trends, less parking and more community transportation might be appropriate, ease of crossing streets, and ease of driving with increase in pedestrian safety, more signage to reduce wanderers both car and pedestrian, smaller cars, limits on vehicle size, signage on available parking spots of the type seen in many mall parking garages, employing valets for existing parking lots ( works in hotels etc) and many more insightful approaches need consideration. Not just increasing parking lots and asphalt and degradation of community beauty.
Building infrastructure exclusively for cars simply draws more cars – the logic in that should be abundantly clear. Called “Car Fortress” a cartoon illustrates this reality. https://lagunastreets.blogspot.com/