Editor: You know, bicycles support commerce and ease parking issues – if you provide some intelligent bike parking along with the lanes. Bike corrals, for example. You can park twelve bikes in the space of one car; at usual loadings that means a net gain of eleven customers accommodated. Why should so much public money be spent to support so inefficient a use of public space as driving?
Car taxes cover less than half the cost of building and maintaining roads, and all those wide lanes and parking spaces don’t pay property taxes, which makes private driving a double tax whammy.
Road diets such as can actually increase car traffic flow, as shown in NYC; and supporting bicycling has been shown to increase local business income in cities worldwide.
Richard Risemberg
Sonoma
So Mr Risemberg am I supposed to believe that your formula of 12:1 if I give up 294 parking spaces you and your biker friends will assure my merchants an extra 3,294 shoppers for the extra 11 parkers? Can I also assume turnover of 2-3x a day at a minimum so your telling me your bikers will bring 9,882 people per day onto Sonoma Plaza?
Gimme a break…
How bout I trade you 4 parking spaces and let you hash them 12 parking spots per space and let me keep the other 290 parking spots intact?