University of Virginia Library

Council And The Cars

Those who stayed around long enough at
last Tuesday's City Council meeting certainly
saw the Council at its worst. Among other
near-sighted efforts Council decided to settle
the city's parking woes by tentatively
approving a parking ban on all automobiles
for the Louis Mountain–Thompson Road
area. The Council chambers were stuffed with
some perturbed but not so very vocal
townsfolk all who bad strangely experienced
the very same nightmares of traffic snares in
their own front yards.

While their arguments may not have been
so very convincing at least their sheer
presence was Council was sure of one thing
which was that 191 voters had signed their
names to petitions demanding the removal of
the University from the community, or
maybe it was people from the University. It's
difficult to say.

Traffic and so it goes parking have always
been problems in both Charlottesville and at
the University. But last year the University
boldly moved to at least partially ease the
accumulating problem by instituting a system
of paid parking around the Grounds whereby
the impoverished and the hapless were
sentenced to seats on University Transit. But
for those who were still too short on change
to afford bus passes it meant a few extra
steps...or miles.

It was not that easy, though. There were
still ways as well as places to avoid the tow
trucks and three-wheeled scooters, and for a
time (at least a year) it worked. But City
Council appears now to have discovered at
least some of these hiding places and is
prepared to crack down.

The citizens of these nearby residential
areas do have legitimate gripes. Their
nightmares may actually at times be very real.
Nonetheless, both the University and the
community maintain the same obligations and
must demonstrate the same commitments to
all University persons—the indigent as well
as the impecunious.

If we are going to rid the local byways of
automobiles let's rid them of the
Mercedes and Cadillacs as well as the
Studebakers and DeSotos.