See if this makes sense to you:
A busy street in Charlotte could soon have a different look. City leaders are proposing reducing East Boulevard’s traffic lanes from four to three between Scott Avenue and Kings Drive and adding turn lanes in both directions.
Engineers believe this will help ease congestion.
Fewer lanes = less congestion. And right in front of Freedom Park to boot. And it is just part of your local government’s war on the car. Take this:
Why are the lanes on Third Street going out of town so narrow? They are so small that the city buses can’t fit between the lines. … Driving beside an SUV is taking your life in your own hands! Ava Turner.
In some parts of Third Street, construction of the new county courthouse is affecting the road. But in other areas, the city intentionally made some lanes as narrow as 9 feet, said Doreen Szymanski of the Charlotte Department of Transportation. That helped make room for a bike lane.
So we are replacing car lanes with bike lanes. Brilliant! Oh, I know, I know. Gotta get people out of their cars, etc.
Here’s when I take this argument seriously: The city and the Uptown employers — gee, who could that be? — link arms and announce a new initiative to get office tower workers to telecommute. Not car, not bike, not rail, not bus. Stay home. Work. Everybody wins. Starts next Monday.
But how would the tasseled-loafer crowd ever know if they are working if they don’t get their daily face time? They don’t just work for face time, they live for face time.
