text: Daniel's political musings: ODOT: Social engineering at it's finest
  More walking and biking is good for people (obesity problem) and good for the environment. It should be encouraged.
  Seattle just reduced the number of parking spaces a developer must provide for new housing units in some crowded inner-city neighborhoods. They intentionally set the available parking far below the projected demand to virtually force the apartment dwellers not to drive. Typical. City officials know what's best for you so be a good little citizen - get on the bus and give up your money to build light rail (which will only be used because they made driving so expensive and inconvenient).
  Officials used to have to hide this social engineering but now they admit to it outright... and liberals buy into it (note anonymous above). The left really are the ones that are anti-choice.
  They are against consumer choice. To borrow a line from them "this disproportionately affects the poor" as well since making car ownership slightly more expensive, while not good for anyone, hits poor people the hardest.
  I agree that walking and biking is great exercise, I enjoy both of those activities. But government should start doing forced marches.
  >Unfortunately this means that more poor people will have fewer transportation choices and be forced to take the bus in the rain.
  It's laughable to think that you care what happens to the poor. In case you haven't noticed, owning a car is quite expensive once you actually buy the car, keep it running, and pay insurance.
  Because of the car culture that the governemnt promoted by building roads at the taxpayer's expense, everyone is forced into a system where expensive to own and maintain vehicles are virtually a neccessatiy, particularly in suburban areas. Back in the day when all of these decisions were being made, it was the auto industry that was pushing hard for these subsidies. Look it up.
  How does this help and not hurt the poor?
  I will galdly support your position if you agree to end all govenrment welfare to the auto industry, however somehow, I don't think that's what you had in mind.
  It's laughable to think that you care what happens to the poor.
  It's laughable to think that you know what I care about. I don't like government subsidies at all, for any industry. But it is government's job to maintain roads. Very few people would disagree.