Posted on 06/08/2014 9:13:30 AM PDT by catnipman
"Boulder needs enough parking to support shoppers and workers who drive, but not so much parking that driving remains the easiest way to get around town ... planners are working on this year seeks to connect the city's approach to parking with other city goals, including economic vitality and environmental sustainability."
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(Excerpt) Read more at dailycamera.com ...
"Boulder needs enough parking to support shoppers and workers who drive, but not so much parking that driving remains the easiest way to get around town ... planners are working on this year seeks to connect the city's approach to parking with other city goals, including economic vitality and environmental sustainability."
ROTFLOL!
Heaven forbid that shopping in Boulder shouldn't be JUST the right amount of hassle. You know, like the perfect temperature for porridge. I have news for these fools: people don't shop on bicycles, because it's really, really, really hard to haul groceries, furniture, lumber, landscape materials, and such on the back of bicycles, especially when it's too far away, it's too cold, too hot, too windy, too icy, too rainy, too dark or too snowy, or one is too old or too feeble. On the other hand, if you're a fit 25 year old and you need to shop for something weighing less than 10 pounds during the 1% of the time it's safe, convenient, practical and comfortable to ride a bike, then by all means lets orient our entire parking strategy based on that particular rare situation. BTW, do these fools not understand that their insane parking philosophy massively discriminates against about 99% of the population?
At any rate, I do have a positive suggestion: everyone involved in parking decision-making in Boulder from the Boulder Council on down (and their families) should eschew ANY shopping by automobile for six months. That way they can figure out the perfect temperature for porridge, uh, I mean the optimal amount of parking hassle they should impose upon their fellow citizenry. Still, Boulder keeps electing these fools, so I guess the majority of Boulderites are quite happy with the insanity.
They want “controlled inconvenience.” And, it’s politically motivated by green concerns which drive planning. A story endlessly repeated around the country these days.
There’s a reason for the many malls and shopping areas outside of Boulder city limits. Boulder is a nightmare to drive in, and the parking is no joy on top of it. I avoid the place like the plague even though it does have some decent restaurants and microbreweries.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to use that in a letter to the editor. Here, town council has decided that parking on the same street for over an hour, even if you move your car to another spot 100 feet away, is worth a $40. fine.
Every city wants to bring back businesses to rejuvenate the downtown. Then they put in parking meters in the already crowded parking. Why would you drive downtown to very dangerous (to you and your car) stores and then have to drive several blocks to the next store and park again when you can go to any strip mall and park once, for free, and do everything you need?
Oh, and let’s not forget all the homeless between you and your car downtown which the stores can’t legally do anything about. But the mall and the strip mall are private so they can run them off and you’ll have a more enjoyable and safer shopping experience.
Tallahassee wanted to strangle the east/west roads to “force people to ride the bus.” They did reduce one of the two major east/west roads to just two lanes; Brick, winding, with large vegetation choked islands. Oh, they look so lovely and you get to see a lot of them as the max speed it 25 mph. But the public outcry about the six lane road stopped them. There hasn’t been a Republican in office here since reconstruction.
Boulder govt. is courtesy of the same horde of cockroaches that left Detroit in such wonderful shape. The Socialists are turning Colorado into another basket case. When they’re done crapping on it, they’ll move on to another state to turn blue and destroy.
I avoid The People’s Democratic Republic of Boulder at all cost. Will not deal with their red light and speed cams, Prius and spandex bikers. I refuse to get a visa to go there.
I didn’t think people drove in Boulder. After all it causes global warming.
“BTW, do these fools not understand that their insane parking philosophy massively discriminates against about 99% of the population?”
They really think this is the way to get people to junk their cars and switch to mass transportation (in everything, not just shopping). Taking the “T” in Boston to get downtown was doing no retailers any favors; as you point out, how much could I possibly carry out?
I don’t know about Boulder, but any city that has unassimilated gibsmedats will have a hard time convincing working stiffs to risk their personal safety on a bus or train.
I suggest that every resident of Boulder - no outsiders - be allocated ‘Parking Points’ based on age, gender (or lack thereof), and health . Once the points are spent on parking and exhausted, the now pointless person will simply have to park at the out-of-town big box stores and shop there. Bye bye Pearl Street!
“Every city wants to bring back businesses to rejuvenate the downtown. Then they put in parking meters in the already crowded parking. Why would you drive downtown to very dangerous (to you and your car) stores and then have to drive several blocks to the next store and park again when you can go to any strip mall and park once, for free, and do everything you need? Oh, and let’s not forget all the homeless between you and your car downtown which the stores can’t legally do anything about. But the mall and the strip mall are private so they can run them off and you’ll have a more enjoyable and safer shopping experience.”
Too many of today’s retailers are looking for 1980 solutions to a 2014 problem; why would I deal with meters, homeless, etc. if I can just buy more things every day online? I’m not a tech-savvy person, but even I have figured out that with the exception of groceries and clothing, I’d rather buy ANYTHING online.
Having Barnes & Noble and a local Army-Navy store both offer to order something for me a while back convinced me that I should just order them myself (without giving a counter-person their “cut”).
“convinced me that I should just order them myself (without giving a counter-person their “cut”).”
I have read that in a fairly short time the brick and mortar retailers will be gone. Even Wal-Mart. They’ll just have warehouse operations and deliver stuff to you. It’s already happening. Several years ago Amazon.com handled a significant percentage of the everything sold in the US. This trend is being driven by high minimum wages and more and more government interference with the employer. Warehouse operations will be largely automated.
When the meat cutters at Wal-Mart unionized Wal-Mart fired them and outsourced cutting. Now they outsource most of their stocking. (Ask the guy stocking the shelves where to find something and he’ll likely tell you he doesn’t work there.)
It is government regulation driving this trend, not greedy business.
Where are all these illegal aliens going to work? There are only so many lawn maintenance jobs. And, if nobody else is working I guarantee they’re not concerned with the state of their lawn.
I’ve been to Boulder ONCE. That was to see Charlton Heston speak.
“I have read that in a fairly short time the brick and mortar retailers will be gone. Even Wal-Mart.”
I can believe that; when malls here in NJ starting filling space with tattoo parlors and more food-focused places, that was the writing on the wall. Even Wal-Mart is a necessary evil where people go to save money, not to enjoy themselves.
This is a dilemma for Dems and the cities they trashed; they were accustomed to forcing employers to hire their unemployable denizens, and are left with empty storefronts. Companies that could figure out how to move jobs around the world can figure out a way to move them out of cities filled with gibsmedats with outstretched hands...
“This is a dilemma for Dems and the cities they trashed; they were accustomed to forcing employers to hire their unemployable denizens,”
I worked for two companies who were given wonderful buildings by Tallahassee in exchange for hiring 350/each people off the welfare roles. For the most part, these (mostly men) did not want to work. They used and sold drugs at work. They brought guns into the plants. And, they sabotaged military hardware. They even peed inside hardware before they attached the watertight covers. (I wanted to do a genetics test and nail them but the management did not want to confront any individuals...cowards.)
So, we were employing 700 off the welfare roles. The local university greens regularly protested in front of the GD plant because they were anti-war. But they used GD’s South African plant as the excuse. Then GD discovered the university had a bigger investment via their pension fund in SA then GD did. The other company was located in the USF/FAMU industrial park. At an open meeting the university decided to offer the pre-bubble collapse price for the plant because “we don’t want that awful military business in our nice, clean ‘academic’ industrial park.” The company said, “Damn! We have several underutilized plants.” They grabbed the money and fled. They laid off all those people who went back on welfare. Only the valuable employees got a move package.
Oh, here’s the best part. When I last went by that plant it was still empty and it’s been five years. The taxpayers sure got a bargain.
Sad story; here in the northeast our liberals are probably ready to farm baby seals for fur coats just for the tax revenues. Many of our former employers’ properties are lying idle as well...
I've been to Boulder many times, and agree it's insanity to put people on bicycles for everything. At least it's mostly flat there. Here in the SF Bay Area, the liberal tax-wasters spent millions on bike paths displacing cars (halving the number of auto lanes). We've got lots of bike paths going up steep hills. I've yet to see bikers using many of them around my neighborhood. Try hauling your groceries on a bike up a steep street. Most of these hypocrite bike owners also have big SUV's for that. You can get some people on bikes, but cars are here to stay.
I have wondered how much Heston had to be paid to go to the home of “Boulder Dementia Syndrome”(BDS).
“I avoid The People’s Democratic Republic of Boulder at all cost. Will not deal with their red light and speed cams, Prius and spandex bikers. I refuse to get a visa to go there.”
Ditto. In fact, I just got flashed there almost 3 months ago going to my doctor (the only reason I’ll go to Boulder). I threw all the notices away because they have to personally serve you within 90 days or the flash is moot (this is true statewide). Not only was I not going to enrich the coffers of the Arizona outfit that Boulder subs this moneymaker to, I was curious to see if they’d go to the trouble of attempting service or just be content with the suckers who pay up.
They actually DID try to serve me one Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, but being prepared, my wife told ‘em I wasn’t home and she refused to accept anything either. I figured they’d give up after that, and now I’ve got only 3 more days before their 90 day clock runs out.
By all means! Oh, and you might want to add that bicycles are a form of recreation, NOT transportation.
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