Whitcomb: Our Parking Problem; Cambridge Upends Zoning; Auctioning Off Government
Robert Whitcomb, Columnist
Whitcomb: Our Parking Problem; Cambridge Upends Zoning; Auctioning Off Government
“It was good. You found your America. It was worth all
The coming: the fading figures in the never-again doorway,
The rankness of steerage, the landing in fog.’’
-- From “Letter to Mother,’ by John Ciardi (1916-1986), American poet, critic, editor, translator and television personality. His mother immigrated from Italy to Boston’s North End.
“We should have moral clarity who started this war, who is bombing cities indiscriminately and who our real friend here is. There are consequences of rewarding the invader even if its leader foolishly led over 700,000 of its citizens to slaughter.”
-- U.S. Rep. Don Bacon (R.-Neb.) on Trump’s plan to give Putin what he wants in Ukraine
“I’ve been in more laps than a napkin.’’
-- Mae West (1893-1980), American actress, singer, comedian, screenwriter and playwright
This must be the pits of the year, outstandingly dreary! No wonder the drugstores seem to have run out of St John’s Wort pills. But wait. We’ll soon see the silver catkins on pussy willows, presaging their transformation into yellow flowers.
xxx
Professor Shoup called “free parking” a classic “tragedy of the commons,’’ in which drivers spend an extraordinary amount of their time and public resources searching for parking set aside by towns and cities in a culture far too dominated by cars.
Be it as municipally mandated street-side parking, windswept parking lots or gloomy multi-level garages, this assignment of space leads to traffic congestion as drivers travel around (often in circles) looking for “free parking’’ amidst the heavy traffic caused by its siren call. These parking spaces are on land that could be used for such things as housing, parks, and public transportation lanes and tracks. The mania for this parking is one reason why housing is so expensive because it limits supply. And it’s actually much cheaper to travel by public transportation than by car, but few people tally up total costs.
Many Americans are impressively physically lazy, and will relentlessly cruise around to avoid walking two or three blocks to get to their destinations. This helps explain why so many of us are fat.
Too many downtowns, in particular, are organized for cars and not for people.
Mr. Shoup noted that new technology allows for fair and efficient ways to use parking meters to charge drivers according to the times of heaviest demand. That can encourage many people not to clog the streets and provide more revenue for local non-car uses.
Our parking problem goes back to the post-World War II era, when federal, state and local policies encouraged sprawl development, gasoline was about 25 cents a gallon, the population was less than half of what it is today and the percentage of people who owned cars much less. There was a sort of exuberant sense, amplified by the massive construction that followed the start of the Interstate Highway System in the late ‘50s, that we could drive ourselves away from all sorts of problems. But building and widening roads to try to curb traffic congestion tends to be self-defeating because it lures more cars.
Still, so addictive is driving that many people still insist on creeping by car into frequently gridlocked places such as downtown Boston rather than taking a train or bus. Long ago, I gave up driving into “The Hub’s’’ vehicular swamp, where I used to work. Of course, I realize that many of us just want to be alone, even if it means being stuck in a traffic jam. And there’s always the car radio. (Actually, of course, you can stick an earbud in one ear (two is potentially dangerous) and listen to podcasts or music on your cell phone, or just listen to your car radio if you can tolerate its banality.
xxx
This will help. The MBTA reports that trains will begin carrying passengers from Fall River and New Bedford to Boston starting Monday, March 24, pending final approval from the Federal Railroad Administration. This should reduce a bit of the traffic on Routes 195, 95, and 24.
Will This Idea Spread?
The Cambridge City Council last week enacted a revolutionary change in its land-use rules that abolishes the long-entrenched ordinance that created districts where only single-family houses could be built. The new rule doesn’t ban the construction of single-family houses but does permit the construction of apartment or condo buildings of up to six stories in most parts of the city, provided that 20 percent of the units are set aside for “affordable housing.’’
That will bring down the city’s sky-high building costs over the next few years by expanding supply. It should be considered in Rhode Island’s most densely populated areas. (I live in a neighborhood with mixed single-family houses and apartment houses, some quite big. They work well together, assuring a wide range of age demographics, and there’s plenty of shopping within walking distance for most residents.)
That old supply and demand!
Consider that housing costs in Austin, despite it being considered a very “hot” (popular) city, have been falling in large part because of a housing construction boom, with the median home price declining 7.1 percent in the December 2023-December 2024 period! The “yes in my backyard” movement has become powerful in Austin and some other big cities in the West, even as the “not in backyard’’ stance remains dominant in many places in New England, very much including politically “liberal communities’’ increasingly known for their hypocrisy. (No windmills please!)
Take a look for powerful lessons:
We need more than Providence’s pallet houses, although any roof in a storm….
xxx
All hail Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals for developing nonaddictive “Journavax,’’ a non-opioid treatment for moderate to severe pain that the FDA has approved for sale. This holds great promise in helping to eventually stop the opioid overdose epidemic, which has killed an estimated 645,000 Americans since 2000 and wreaked havoc in many places, most notably in the Red States. This is another treasure from New England’s world-renowned biotech complex. We’ll see how it does with the old/new regime in Washington with its numerous anti-science and anti-New England personages.
xxx
Is it really worth it for the City of Newport (and any other sources it can get money from) to spend millions of dollars on sand replenishment at Easton’s Beach as the rising sea level and storms erode the strand by an estimated annual average of 1.2 feet a year, though a big storm could take out a lot more in a few hours? I doubt it.
Better to accept that we’re going to have to move back from the coast in many places. We need more public swimming pools as an alternative.
xxx
Rhode Island should study how the service provided by publicly owned electric utilities compares to that of investor-owned utilities. There have long been such utilities in America, and citizens seem to generally like them, in part because of their lower bills.
We may get to the point over the next few decades when much of our power is generated neighborhood by neighborhood and building by building by alternative energy, especially solar, but with other sources to be developed.
To the Highest Bidder
“And then, Sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.’’
-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English writer
xxx
“There is a sickness among tyrants: They cannot trust their friends.’’
- Aeschylus (525/524 – c. 456/455 BC), Greek playwright
I thought of this the other day when reading about Trump’s order to stop the bribery case against the corrupt -- but arrogant! -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams and his pardoning of former Illinois Rod Blagojevich, who tried to sell a U.S. Senate seat. Both are, or at least were, Democrats and are now Trump camp followers.
The moves are part of Trump’s evisceration of the Justice Department’s long-time formal -- and remarkably nonpartisan over the years -- mission to combat corruption among U.S. public officials, corporate executives and foreign actors operating in America. From here on, only figures seen as foes of the tyrant, or inadequately adoring, are likely to be prosecuted/persecuted. Meanwhile, the regime plans to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created in the wake of the George W. Bush-Administration-assisted scams that helped cause The Crash of ’08 and The Great Recession. Those led to the Tea Party and the fascist MAGA movement.
Consider the high-level Trumpers, some now in his regime, who have made a lot of money by selling the connection. One example is Kash Patel, in line to run the FBI. He has had an outfit that peddles a lot of Trump-adoration stuff, such as decks of playing cards with Trump as the ace.
The Maximum Leader’s lackeys on radio, TV, and social media have peddled dubious health products.
The best known is former TV conman and Trumper Mehmet Oz, M.D., who has been picked to run the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He has made a pile pumping up the likes of such things as “magical’’ coffee beans to lose weight and red onions, endives and sea bass to stop cancer. He’s also in bed with big medical insurance companies. We can expect he’ll find ways of making big killings from his new job.
Then there’s Steve Bannon, perhaps the best-known of the early MAGA men. Last week, he pleaded guilty to defrauding donors who had sought his help to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. He had been previously charged in this scam in a related case.
But all this will pale compared to the new huge government contracts to go to Co-President Elon Musk.
A big “For Sale’’ is up at the federal government. Polls suggest that a majority of Americans don’t care. But they will when they get the bills.
xxx
It’s fun to see Republican members of Congress loyally endorsing the regime’s plans for massive cuts in federal programs and spending EXCEPT in their states. An easy example – pols from the Deep Red farm states such as Kansas and Iowa demanding that there be no reductions in those gigantic federal programs that enrich agribusiness.