You rock, Lenny! I didn't vote for you, but now realize I should have.

Hi Lenny,

When we surveyed the downtown businesses (nearly 100% of them), the problems they reported overwhelmingly included that their customers cannot park, they have cancelled reservations due to this problem, and that offices have in-house cafeterias. For example, Ava's Omelette House, which just closed, due to lack of enough income, used to be supported by catering to three businesses at the building where the old Meyer Appliance was located. Those three tech companies moved into buildings in downtown MV, got commercial kitchens and the catering business was lost to those commercial kitchens.

Additionally, at the hearing on an office proposal for Villa, it was exposed during the meeting that the city has sold 2000 permits this year, for the 1700 parking spaces in our garages and lots that allow permits (most of them). Office workers come in and park before lunch, and leave after the dinner hour has started.

We are starving our restaurants because their customers can't come for lunch due to parking, and the offices provide their own lunches. One day a week where an office sends their staff out with vouchers, or brings in lunch, doesn't cut it.

The survey of businesses on Castro, done in a snapshot format, shows that at dinners, Cascal is doing great. Everyone else is suffering. And for lunches, even Cascal is at 40% capacity. And they are our very best example of a restaurant in our downtown. Most other restaurants are at 10-25% at lunch and in the 30 - 50% range for dinner most night, compared to their capacity.

Regardless of weather or circumstance, those restaurants are paying high rents, their staffs have high personal costs to live in proximity to Mountain View and those costs have to be paid regardless of whether a particular time is filled.

What we saw when we talked with owners and managers were people who were extremely nervous, many quite emotional, who were very afraid of losing their businesses and recognizing that this cannot go on.

The "Downtown is at Risk" as I put in my slides before council.

The Council can pause development except for Affordable Housing downtown. Why don't we don't we do that, so that we aren't considering, for example, an office where Beirhaus is, with no parking at all for the workers who will be inside, etc?

That is not right. And neither is starving our restaurants by keeping their customers from our city parking and allowing commercial kitchens in offices within the downtown area.

Mary Hodder

I have lived in Mountain View nearly 25 years and used to regularly meet friends in downtown Mountain View for lunch 1-2 times per week. We have a couple favorite restaurants downtown where they would serve us our drinks and starters as they brought the menu to us...we were that regular.

We have basically stopped having our 1-2x per week lunches downtown over the past year or so because it became such a pain to find parking downtown...we got tired of dealing with it. Now, we typically meet in Los Altos because it is SO much easier to park, stroll and relax in downtown Los Altos. I use the post office there, too...it is WAY easier than trying to use the post office on Hope Street.

Driving a couple minutes to downtown Los Altos is still quicker and more relaxing than trying to deal with downtown Mountain View presently.

What is your rationale for only building affordable housing downtown? We should be building housing at all income levels in downtown due to its adjacency to mass transit, local businesses, and other amenities. Higher density in our downtown will allow it to flourish and thrive.

Lenny,
The design of mountain View is over the heads of Council and the Planning Department. It's very clear our city must have an experienced urban planning intervention. We are not a small town any longer, certainly not with the likes of the Tech Industry surrounding us. Mountain View deserves the same caliber of design and planning skills that Google, Facebook and Apple have engaged. What we can't afford is to continue on this reckless path. We are not going to miss out or loose anything by pausing for a visionary plan. That's ridiculous.

To be clear, my question and statement was directed at Mary Hodder, not Lenny Siegel.

I think MV and the City Council are doing great jobs, and I object to the term "reckless".

Lenny,

Well over 2,000 people signed Livable Mountain View's petitions because they were concerned about losing our historic downtown buildings. The City Manager, Dan Rich, is the person who first raised to Livable Mountain View that the best solution to saving what we love about our downtown might be to update the Downtown Precise Plan because it has not been significantly updated in some time.

Walkability involves much more than density near transit and a sidewalk. It involves neighborhood-serving retail and windows that engage pedestrians walking by them. People feel we are losing those things to office and hotel uses on our downtown streetscapes. Our bike shop and family beer houses are threatened by development proposals with less friendly and more sterile ground floor spaces.

To me your guest opinion comes off as very dismissive of almost all the concerns of so many people who signed those petitions. It comes off unnecessarily pitting resident engagement in what our downtown becomes against affordable housing. I urge you and the rest of council to work with residents with these concerns, rather than dismiss them.

Alison

@Mary

"The Council can pause development except Affordable Housing downtown."

I probably should have specified more, but my comment above was already quite long. What I mean by that, specifically, is that if we want to do an affordable housing development the Council could allow one downtown on Lot 12 and would hopefully be controlled by the city anyway, while pausing development downtown to update the 25-30 year old plan and make it represent the situation we have today.

I would love to see the city create townhouses or condos there.. for people in specific professions who work in Mountain View in public jobs (teachers, fire people, police, city employees, maybe non-profit workers based in MV that benefit MV or SV charities like Housing, etc) and give them units at cut rates over market. Then the city could allow them to vest in for 10y to the discounted part of the price (the difference between purchase price and market). If the candidate leaves, the new buyer has to be in the same position with public work and would reset the 10y vest, and the seller wouldn't get the part that hadn't yet vested. Some formula like this could be worked out to help people in these roles and give them golden handcuffs to keep them here long term, but still let them out if they wish to sell.

But I would love to see us develop Lot 12, while still pausing the overall plan for everything else downtown. I hope that makes sense.

Your right Mary, parking is one of the major problems, brought on by increase in population. The more we build the more noise, pollution and major infrastructure problems. Now the Yimbys want to change this little town into a NYC or Mumbai.

The more people, the more cars period. Doesn't matter if someone lives next to noisy public transportation or not, people will have their cars. It's necessary for areas like ours, where destinations are not close by. Lets be like Los altos they know they don't have the room to build either, so they don't. There is plenty of new development in San Jose.

Just say NO to new developments!!!!

Gene,
I believe my option is shared by the majority of our neighbors. This being the Holiday Season, my husband and I have been to countless gatherings throughout Mountain View. "Reckless Growth" is commonly used as a description of what we are all experiencing as residents and visitors. There is a ground swell of discontent regarding the lack of sensible planning. Many of the discontented feel that some members of our Council have no vision for what Mountain View can be. This is why it is critical to pause and update our plan with the hiring of an urban design planner. Many cities up and down The Peninsula and nationwide have benefited from consulting urban design experts. I travel frequently and certainly appreciate cities that utilize this specialized field in their planning efforts. It's time for our Council to listen more to their constituents and less to the developer's interests.

I'm sorry, Mary, but that doesn't make sense. We need housing for all incomes, regardless of employer. For example, what about service workers, janitorial staff, dishwashers, retail employees? Do they not contribute enough to our community to be included?

As for "pausing," well, "pausing" is the same as stopping. We need housing downtown for everyone, and plenty of it.

Your talking point about "updating the 25-30 year old plan" contradicts Lenny's statement that the plan was last updated in 2015. Is he lying, or are you being misleading?

Gene,
I'm sure if we could ask Ed Lee (recently deceased Mayor of SF), if he had a cautionary tale to share with us, he would speak about the unintended negative consequences that come from growing too fast. Jobs Jobs Jobs = unaffordable housing, homelessness, Ghost House tragedies, severe traffic/parking. We have the example just to the north. Let's not make the same mistake.

@Lenny

I don't think we need to pause all developments (and certainly not housing on a public parking lot) but a pause might be appropriate for offices and historic buildings.

I don't think we need to necessarily reopen the downtown precise plan but the City really needs to address a number of issues correctly identified by Livable Mountain View (and over 2,000 residents).

To address the issue of offices not patronizing local restaurants/caters, let's ban commercial kitchens in office buildings first downtown and in the San Antonio area and down the road (5-10 years? as more mixed-used gets developed) in North Bayshore and East Whisman.

To address the issue of parking taken over by downtown employees, why don't we cap the number of employee parking permits today and work on reducing it over time? That would double as an incentive for employers to come up with alternatives to commuting by car; a win for all.

For historic buildings, Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) can be very effective for preservation. In NYC, Grand Central Station was preserved thanks to a transfer of air rights to the adjacent Pan Am building.

@Alison I fully agree that the is more to walkability than sidewalk and density. The "walkability score" we see in real estate ads is largely determined by the number and types of amenities one can walk to. Animating our streets is critical and the City should implement policies to:

- ban retail to office conversion (as we've seen too often downtown)
- make sure that promises of retail are kept (unlike 900 Villa Street)
- avoid "dead zones" with nothing interesting to walk to or even to walk by. Many examples downtown but also sadly along El Camino.

Serge

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

After reading this, I am very confused. Council Member Siegel says:

___________________________

Downtown development is not piecemeal. It is processed according to the Downtown Precise Plan, which has been updated four times since 2000, most recently in 2015 when the City Council voted to further restrict ground-floor office uses.

To me the most important elements of that plan are:

• Encourage walkability

• Preserve the historic integrity of Castro Street

• Increase intensity near transit

• Protect adjacent residential neighborhoods
_____________________________________________________


Yet, when push came to shove to protect two historic buildings in downtown ( OMV ) he voted against it! Worse, he voted to approve yet more OFFICES!


In my opinion, this entire article is disingenuous for the following reasons:

1) "it appears to me that downtown employment has boosted, not damaged weekday lunch business" -- This may be so, but this distracts from the point that replacing restaurants and retail with offices adds to the jobs/housing imbalance and is destroying the character of old Mountain View whether it is one building at a time or one block at a time!

2) "Though downtown — near our only regional transit lines — is an appropriate place for office expansion, any office development absent residential growth exacerbates the jobs-housing imbalance. That's why I have consistently questioned it. Yet we must maintain our perspective. Even if currently proposed projects are built, downtown buildings will represent a small fraction of citywide employment growth." -- ARE YOU SERIOUS!???? In my opinion, downtown and OMV ARE NOT appropriate places for office expansion! With all the new offices that are being shoehorned into downtown, you are saying that is only a FRACTION of all the planned new offices? What happened to "Balanced Mountain View"? THIS, everyone, is exactly why it is impossible to EVER restore a balance between jobs and housing! The city will always add at least 3-4 jobs for every additional resident it builds new housing for.

3) "The city is working hard to solve the parking problem. We are installing a way-finding system to let drivers know where spaces are available; we are planning for shared parking; we are piloting valet parking and free Uber/Lyft rides for visitors within Mountain View, and finally, we are building underground parking. We are not increasing the amount of land set aside for parking, nor are we building more above-ground garages." -- REALLY? The last time I looked, the city was preparing to get rid of at least THREE of the downtown lots to cram in more buildings! Also, there is NO SUCH THING AS FREE Uber/Lyft rides. Someone always pays! Just because hard-working taxpayers are footing the bill for something does not make it 'Free'.


4) "A pause in downtown development means a pause in planning for housing, and that means more people living in vehicles, commuting long distances, and leaving the area." -- This is ridiculous! There are plenty of other projects in the works to add housing in other areas of Mountain View ( Not to mention other MUCH LARGER cities that can more easily add housing and office spaces). I see no reason that historic OMV needs to be destroyed to add housing that won't even put a tiny dent in all the new housing that will be required thanks to the Council's seemingly insatiable appetite for adding new offices to Mountain View.


My biggest fear is that the people who have said that they want a "Balanced Mountain View", are and will continue to work to increase the imbalance even further, while telling us that they are doing the opposite. If you are voting to put new offices in downtown and destroy historic buildings, then in my opinion, you're part of the problem.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

Old buildings are not automatically historic buildings, Jim. Try again.

"and is destroying the character of old Mountain View whether it is one building at a time or one block at a time"

I'd rather ensure that people have housing rather than keep some perceived character of the neighborhood that seems to always necessitate never building above two stories.

@YIMBY - It's very interesting that you frequently try to associate me with things that I have never said. Where did I say that "Old Buildings are automatically historic buildings"? You try again.

How does building more OFFICES ensure that people have more housing? How much new housing is being built in your back yard? How many immigrants have you taken into your home? Lots of people are great at supporting things as long as they are done somewhere else or as long as they are someone else's problem.

I am not opposed to building anything new in Old Mountain View as you tried to imply. I am against new OFFICES being built in OMV when North Bayshore and the San Antonio Center already have plans for massive office expansion that will more than eat up all the housing that is already in the pipeline! I am also against taking already scarce parking, to build yet more structures that will severely increase the scarcity of parking.

And who are you to tell those of us who live in OMV that we need to change the character of our neighborhood? The character is not a 'perceived' character, because the vast majority of the existing housing IS two stories or less!

One of my points, which you seem to have failed to grasp, is that the neighborhood is called Old Mountain View for a reason and it would seem counter intuitive to have an Old Mountain View where all the buildings are less than 2 years old!

Another of my points, which you have not addressed, is that I think it is a contradiction for someone to claim to be for a "Balanced Mountain View" and outline the points where the Council " voted to further restrict ground-floor office uses", but then turns around and votes for more office projects! Not only that, but offices that either are directly contrary to the stated policy, or find tricky ways to bypass the policy such as an office building that has only a lobby on the ground floor, with all the offices on the 2nd floor and higher.

Lastly, we don't want these structures in our neighborhood, but there is nothing stopping you from petitioning the council to build all these structures in YOUR neighborhood.


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

"And who are you to tell those of us who live in OMV that we need to change the character of our neighborhood? The character is not a 'perceived' character, because the vast majority of the existing housing IS two stories or less!"

Because some of us aren't [portion removed; your opinions are welcome, but be respectful of other posters] who think that pushing a generation into poverty and into permanent renter status is an acceptable outcome for keeping a suburban ambience.

The largest factor "pushing a generation into poverty and into permanent renter status" are the tech giants who insist on continuing to grossly expand their footprints in this region despite the clear evidence that doing so is wreaking environmental, financial, and economic hardship on everyone residing (or who may desire to reside) in the region.

Talk about selfish, greedy and entitled = tech giants.

@Mirror

That's utterly ridiculous. The tech giants are part of a booming economy in the Bay Area. This economic growth is running right into an artificial housing limitation due to height restrictions and overzealous home owner groups who can't suffer a tall building in their sight.

You want to see selfish, greedy and entitled? Look in a mirror.

@YIMBY - Do you own your home? I don't and I never have; not because I didn't want to, but because I could never afford to. The tech giants do provide high paying jobs, but not everyone here is a tech. What about those who work in retail or service jobs? As long as the high tech companies keep expanding their bloated footprints, anyone who is not a tech exec will never be able to afford to buy a home ( other than a prefab or mobile home) in MV.

Our aversion to tall buildings has nothing to do with being unable to "suffer a tall building in their sight", and everything to do with quality of life, knowing our next door neighbors, having a porch or a yard to enjoy, and not being stacked up like sardines! Again, I have to wonder why people insist that we have to change who we are to fit into a box ( literally ) , when there are many other cities that people can move to if they want to live in stack-n-pack housing?

What is pushing people into poverty and permanent renter status are the very policies that the Council has been pushing for years; "Office, Office, and more Office".


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

Why hasn't the city striped parking spaces on surface streets? I notice that SO MANY people double park because nobody can figure out exactly how much space to use. I know this isn't a solution to the long term parking problems but it definitely can make parking more efficient. Its seems every other town/city stripes their surface parking...

Jim, could there potentially be a very, very slight correlation between housing prices being expensive, and your aversion to "stack and pack" tall buildings? Is there a remote chance that, by not building high-density housing and focusing exclusively on detached single-family housing, the resulting lack of housing units has resulted in what housing in available to be bid up to absurd levels? Do you see any connection whatsoever?

On the one hand (amid disrepectful remarks already removed by the editors, but I can imagine their gist), complaining of "pushing a generation into poverty and into permanent renter status" -- and in the next breath, passionately defending the very trends that created that situation: the historically unusual, unsustainable, unassimilable burst of job creation in the last few years.

No one who relentlessly advocates such mutually contradictory positions is ever likely be taken seriously by most people (even if they stopped lacing their rhetoric with personal attacks). And once again it is a pleasure (and a contrast) to see Jim Neal's measured, calm, penetrating analysis. Jim Neal would win followers even on style alone.

Yeah, it's those darn jobs pushing the millennial generation into poverty. That's why housing is so expensive. Not because housing isn't being built, no no, it's all the jobs. That's the problem.

You know why we don't take you seriously? Because you post absurdities like that.

[Post removed; focus on the issue and be respectful of other posters.]

Exasperating! This column and several of the comments on it, either intentionally or by sheer ignorance, confuse the perceived need for downtown office buildings with the REAL need for housing citywide. Applying resources to a much-needed downtown plan would jeopardize housing development elsewhere? Really, Vice Mayor Siegel?!

What residents appear to be calling for is a pause in development downtown, the proposals for which are OVERWHELMINGLY for commercial structures -- office buildings, hotels, etc. -- and NOT residential. Let's not gloss over that fact. And the pause they seek wouldn't need to be permanent or even open-ended, but long enough for the city to get its planning in order and its downtown development aligned with reality.

Finally, for God's sake, Mr. Vice Mayor, please stop patronizing and insulting the intelligence of Voice readers and Mountain View residents. We're smarter than you give us credit for being.

You might say you want a "total and complete shutdown" of development until our city's representatives "can figure out what is going on"? Now where have I heard that before, I recall it being a totally temporary measure...

It's sad that you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and kill any housing developments. Housing delayed is housing denied.

@ "@Exasperated"--

Hmmm....couldn't you have given yourself another ID with something that didn't co-opt mine? Or was confusion your intent?

In any event, you've proven my point -- that screaming "Housing, housing, housing!" about a non-housing issue is becoming all too common in Mountain View, and does no one any good. Yes, we need housing. No argument there But tell us, how does plopping down a hotel or office building downtown (and there are several proposals for both) solve the housing problem? You'd have us believe that there's some automatic, positive correlation. There isn't. Trust me, there'd be a far less-vocal call for a pause if housing were tied to the countless proposals for downtown commercial buildings. (If you haven't noticed, mixed-use development -- commercial+housing -- is somehow absent from those proposals.)

And by the way, no, I might NOT say " 'total and complete shutdown' of development until our city's representatives 'can figure out what is going on' " because I wouldn't at all say that. In fact, I believe the city is doing commendable work in encouraging housing all over Mountain View. Up to 10K units in North Bayshore strikes is pretty darned impressive!

Ah, but there is a housing project in the downtown plan, which you want to "pause."

Would you be in favor of 10K units in Old Mountain View, or might you only be happy with it when it's out in North Bayshore, and not, say, Not In Your Backyard?

@ "@Exasperated"--

First, here's how comments and replies to them work, de facto, in public forums: You choose a unique to ID yourself -- say, you choose "I'm Exasperated Too" -- to distinguish you from others, like, say, me. Then when replying to your comment, someone will put "@I'm Exasperated Too" in the comment text so you know it's directed at you. Okay, with that little comment-reply lesson out of the way....

I truly wish I could tell you yours is a rational argument, but alas, it's not. There are countless proposals, at various stages of progress, for COMMERCIAL developments downtown -- one that would displace, if not remove entirely, what many regard as historic structures; and others that don't -- but NONE would do anything to offset the jobs-housing imbalance, or bring housing (affordable or otherwise) to Mountain View. A pause would primarily serve to give us all a breather, enabling the city council and planners to step back, take a critical look at development and plan a downtown that's not overrun by non-stop commercial development that, again, does nothing to solve the housing crunch.

I'm sorry, but you're betraying your ignorance of the downtown plan, which is fine, but usually commenters complaining about how terrible a plan is try to have actually read it first. Lot 12 is a project for housing. In fact, it's referenced in the above post by Lenny Siegel that you complained about being "patronizing."

Now that I have your attention, though, do you support 10K housing units in Old Mountain View, or is your response: Not In My Backyard?

@ "@Exasperated" (guess you're not going to take advice on giving yourself a unique, confusion-avoiding ID)--

Well, now, isn't this little exchange getting spirited!

My "ignorance" hasn't betrayed one thing: That the subjects of housing and the disproportionately far-more common commercial developments proposed for downtown continue to be unduly conflated, creating a misguided narrative. The need for the former isn't solved by allowing the latter to go unchecked. And the vice mayor's column, whether unintended or by design, did nothing to help diminish that conflation.

As for your apples-to-aardvarks comparison that asks where residents would accept 10K housing units, you really didn't expect an informed, fact-based response, did you? There's so precious little available property in OMV relative to North Bayshore's acres of it. Still, in that hypothesis, creating housing would be far superior for downtown and its merchants than would more office buildings.

Does this mean you were unaware of the housing project at Lot 12, or that you were trying to halt that project in addition to everything else?

I would appreciate an informed, fact-based response, but if you're unwilling or unable to provide one, I'll have to make do with what you provide. Am I correct in saying that you are in favor of 10K housing units in Old Mountain View?

@ "@Exasperated" (guess you're sticking w/ that ID)--

Actually, I'm very much aware and in favor of the Lot 12 affordable-housing plan. You mention is as though a pause would actually "halt" it. Let's not exaggerate, now. It's the very kind of proposal that rises above the rest (read: commercial) and certainly wouldn't get nixed if the city takes a little time to reflect on downtown planning. Plus, even on the most aggressive schedule, construction wouldn't start 'til 2022, so there'd be no rush anyway.

Informed and fact-based enough for you?

And to your question, IF there were sufficient land and infrastructure to support it, why not? But let's be honest, that's about as hypothetical a question as you could ask with regard to Mountain View housing.

Why is it difficult to get a straight answer out of you? You want to halt the downtown plan until we can figure out what's going on, but you don't think that doing so will delay housing projects? How does that work?

Old Mountain View has plenty of land and infrastructure go support 10K units. Caltrain and VTA are right there, and one would just need to rezone from single-family homes to higher density. Do I have you on-board?

@ "@Exasperated" (you don't like "I'm Exasperated Too", eh? It fits)--

I could not have been more straight w/ my answers. But let me add succinctness: Pausing does NOT mean nixing.

Now, here's a question for you: Why are you so fixated on this 10K-housing-units-downtown scenario? The city has all but approved 10K units where's there far more land to accommodate them. The downtown can handle the affordable-housing plan for Lot 12.

And given the illogic you've brought to this comments section, I can't imagine being "on-board" with you on, well, anything.

Best of luck to you. And I mean that.

You want to halt the downtown plan until we can figure out what's going on, but you don't think that doing so will delay housing projects? Is that an accurate assessment of your stance, or not?

How much additional housing do you think Old Mountain View can support, or is housing just for other neighborhoods?

@ I'm Exasperated Too (sorry, but that's your new ID)--

As I mentioned, the Lot 12 plan is the very type that would rise to the top of of the heap of proposed developments, so any pause to review/revise the downtown plan wouldn't derail it, though maybe delay it temporarily. In fact, for that reason, I'd even support Lot 12 being exempt from any pause; the housing wouldn't encroach on the downtown as would any new hotels or office buildings, which absolutely do need to be reined in.

How much additional housing do I think Old Mountain View can support? Couldn't answer that -- too many variables and missing data points. Hey, I don't claim to be a housing expert.

So, IET, this has been fun and all to go back-and-forth with you here, but I really need to get some work done. And this exchange could go on indefinitely.

Happy holidays! And I mean that.

I'm glad you admit that your proposed "pause" would, in fact, delay and possibly even derail any current housing projects in Downtown. Why not exempt all housing projects consistent with the existing downtown plan from your proposed "pause?" This would simplify things greatly.

Let's pause for a second: you're qualified enough to know that the city's planning is not "in order," but not qualified enough to know how much housing your neighborhood can handle? Not even a ballpark? Color me surprised.

@ I'm Exasperated Too (has a nice ring to it, no?)--

Ahh, snap, you drew me back in right before had to leave!

Pls. read my previous comment, in which I opined that "....any pause to review/revise the downtown plan wouldn't derail it." You didn't read my "admission" correctly.

Oh, and I never claimed to be qualified, other than being an OMV resident for nearly 30 years and observing what the city clearly gets right and what it doesn't. If not knowing the precise number of housing units OMV can accommodate disqualifies me from expressing myself on a public forum such as this, I'll cease doing so.

You'll notice I asked for a ballpark, not a precise number this time. Why don't you like to provide a direct answer? Perhaps you didn't read my comment correctly?

Will you agree that all housing consistent with the existing plan should not be paused?

Plenty of parking in garages in downtown MV. Even more parking in neighborhoods a block or two from ANY downtown location. If you are driving down Castro and expect to find parking on Castro or side streets- you are doing it wrong. I live and work (downtown) in MV but I never drive on Castro and thoug I usually walk, when I drive I never have a problem finding parking.

"If you are driving down Castro and expect to find parking on Castro or side streets- you are doing it wrong."

BINGO!

This and many areas around our neck of the woods can be difficult for the uninitiated, but if you have a good guide, its very workable. You just have to think a bit before you head out. A bike helps for small trips. It's another arrow in your quiver of alternative ways.

@ love my city

I completely agree with the important points you make. Have you ever considered running for Council? We need council members with your vision. If you run, I'll campaign for you!