All for me, none for all

The other night I went to a neighbourhood open house hosted by the City,  to address concerns of local residents who are upset by “rat-runners”--drivers who use residential side streets to dodge the backed-up traffic that clogs the main thoroughfare of Hastings Street. 

As the city answers the vociferous complaints of a politicised neighbourhood group, formed to encourage traffic to go anywhere else but down their own street (and likely onto mine) both have completely failed to address the more pressing issues. The city and the citizens group seem eager to chase the particular symptom that is bedevilling them, but continue to completely ignore the wider disease that affects the whole metropolitan region.

It would seem the neighbourhood group is most concerned when people who don’t live in their ‘hood drive down their street in order to dodge the congestion on Hastings St. at  the morning and evening unhappy hours. They are incensed at the inconsiderate behaviour of drivers who roll through the stop signs and then speed between them--just like what happens on my street, and probably yours. They rail against the very system they are happy and eager to see maintained and expanded, so long as it is to their benefit. They identify all the ills that the ‘happy motoring’ lifestyle encompasses but fail to connect the dots to their own behaviour.

I applaud the people of the neighbourhood for organizing, standing up and squeaking their wheels at city hall, yet they simply seem to have the narrowest of NIMBY motivations. While they clearly see some of the problems endemic to car culture, their solution is to push it in someone else’s direction. 

The homeowners seem to have no problem with their own cars parked up and down both sides of the street, and I’m sure they smile and wave to one another as they all drive away in the morning, each single driver needing an oversized gas guzzler to get his- or her-self around town, oblivious to the destruction he leaves in his wake.

Just as the residents on the north side of Hastings St. complain, the rush hour traffic is altogether aggressive, noxious and downright dangerous on the south side too--crossing Pender street at 4:45 is not for the faint of heart, and is explicitly dangerous once winter’s early darkness settles.

As it turned out, the walk down the side of the Hastings Highway at the unhappy hour was more instructive than the oversized information panels that littered the room.

I actually try to avoid making the walk to the library (where the open house was held) during highway hours, it is just so disheartening.  The long lines of oversized vehicles each carrying but a single person, each boiling out pollution. The intersections crowded, forever slowed at light changes as always there is one more impatient guy who thinks he can squeeze through to the other side of his red light, blocking the cross traffic. 

This is where the real problem lies. Not the selfish fool who tries to run the light at the expense of the others, but the whole ludicrous, collectively insane behaviour. Every single day the same people sit in the same line-ups, boiling out pollution, oblivious to any but their own desires. ignorant beyond all understanding. I don’t really think most people are too stupid to acknowledge their own destructive behaviour, but i do think the vast majority CHOOSE to ignore it. And that is unconscionable.

Yes, I’ve heard all their excuses, and none of them wash. Certainly many people have serious legitimate transportation problems to overcome, but there are better solutions for nearly all of them.

Regionally, we know that automobile ownership is outpacing population growth. This in spite of the piecemeal and half-hearted efforts to encourage people to pursue their tasks with alternate forms of transportation. Thankfully they have stopped making Hummers, but there is no shortage of them on our streets. Along with the Escalades, the F-3500 trucks and every flavour of SUV, overwhelmingly occupied by a single person. That anybody believes he needs a 6000 lb. vehicle for personal transportation is beyond my comprehension.

How has selfishness and greed become so commonplace? When did an ostentatious and dangerous “fuck you” to everybody else become socially acceptable, even desirous and applauded? 

Predators live among us.