what the frak?
WARNING: this one's partly a rant.
Shanghai and Mexico City are requiring their public officials to use public transport once a month.
What does Makati do to celebrate Earth Day? Ask drivers to shut of their engines for 60 seconds.
(SFX: canned laughter)
And, oh, it gets worse: they start the day with a motorcade. Woohoo.
Couldn't they have had a pedestrian march instead? Or a bicycle parade?
Ah, yes, I forgot. We're ruled by auto-elitists who can't imagine that you need to provide efficient public transportation and control private car use if you want to make a serious dent on our greenhouse gas emissions.
Ok, rant over.
Here are some ideas they could consider next time, if they actually want to make a meaningful gesture.
- Provide free public transportation within Makati for one whole day.
- Pair that off with a one day 100% increase in parking rates throughout the city -no parking should be free (even to residents).
- Proceeds of that parking rate increase should go to a pedestrian streetscape fund or to pay for bike racks in all public buildings.
- Declare one of the main roads (Ayala Avenue or Makati Avenue) completely pedestrian for one whole day.
3 comments:
Hmmm...somebody's a BSG fan, too, apparently.
The problem of congestion here in the provinces is also because of our public transport -- the tricycles and "trisikads" (bicycle rickshaws) -- not that the cars don't provide their own share of the grief. I can't help but think that things would be so much better if people learned to just walk!
guilty as charged.
and don't get me started on the "urbanism of new caprica vs. the urbanism of galactica"
I've addressed how the economic model of our public transport affects driver behavior before. So we seriously need to rethink how that system is organized.
But to encourage more walking, we should also (and again, this is a repeat message) build cities and communities that are walkable.
Well, they did have the Miss Earth candidates walking amongst the temporarily stopped cars exhorting those who were still running their airconditioners to turn them off.
Frakking brilliant!
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