Oddball Update

There was an amusing letter to the editor in today’s local paper. Now, I complain about the tourist traffic and overcrowding as much as the next guy, but some people just really refuse to look reality in the eye. Some people, like this particular letter-writer, think that we should not expand our infrastructure to support the people it carries; instead we should further inconvenience our lives to the point where the solution is worse than the goddamn problem.

Because I’m feeling especially snarky, I shall comment on the letter one passage at a time.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot!

Here in Naples “they” seem determined to widen every existing road to or through paradise!

Yes, they do seem determined to do that, don’t they? Could it be because our once small town now houses the same number of residents as much larger urban areas, yet many of our roads are still po-dunk two-lane bottlenecks? That needs to be corrected.

Planners should learn from cities like New York that sacrificed their charm and neighborhoods to the worship of asphalt and automobile access.

The worship of asphalt and automobile access? Who even drives in New York City? They have a real public transportation system there that functions because people live and work in the same relative space. You can’t compare New York to friggin’ Naples, you idiot.

It’s never enough. If you build it, they will come. The additional lanes are soon bumper-to-bumper. Residents suffer noise pollution and air pollution (no pesky emissions testing for Florida). The quality of life is compromised.

The quality of life is compromised by the fact that we have infrastructure that is insufficient for the number of people using it, not because it exists at all. That’s why we’re trying to improve it. Yes, it’s possible that even with wider roads, we will fill the infrastructure to the brim yet again. If that happens, I’m counting on people like this letter-writer to either die of old age or get so fed up with the problems that they move somewhere else, thereby reducing our traffic load. It’s like a system of natural selection. Or supply and demand. You can’t regulate this kind of crap.

Hold the asphalt! Explore the alternatives.

Create commuter lots along our major highways. Provide clean, comfortable, affordable public transportation.

Our major highways? Why is that plural? There is only one major highway anywhere NEAR Naples or any of its neighboring cities, and that highway (I-75) is also a po-dunk four-lane nightmare that’s drastically insufficient for the volume of traffic that travels on it. Creating commuter lots out on I-75 is going to do what? I don’t use the freeway to get to work. You want me to drive out to the freeway, head north for 8 miles, park in some vast asphalt lot (hey, you yourself said “hold the asphalt, right?), then take a bus BACK INTO TOWN? Gee, that really helps the traffic problem—it takes me twice as long to get to work as it does now! Fucking idiot.

And I bet it’s as simple as waving a magic wand and creating “clean, comfortable, affordable” public transportation, isn’t it? Yeah, huge diesel buses are a dime a dozen. You can install leather captain’s chairs in them and still carry 600 people per bus, can’t you. And no one using the bus would ever, EVER deign to drop trash on it, graffiti it up or damage it deliberately, would they? No, it’s inconceivable. HELLO! REALITY IS CALLING YOU ON THE PHONE; PICK UP!

And like I said before, this is not New York City. How can public transportation possibly work when you’ve got people who need to travel 30-40 miles each way? With the wide variety of stops those buses would need to make, you’d either have a humongous fleet of buses or, again, horrendously long commute times. Who’s gonna pay for a bus fleet that size? To maintain it? To replace the buses that are too old? To repair the buses that are vandalized?

Offer incentives for carpooling. Eliminate one-person/one-car commuting.

Sorry, that doesn’t work in the suburbs. People live dozens of miles away from each other. We work long hours. We run errands because every member of the family is also working one, two, or even three jobs. There are not enough hours in the day for an entire carpool of people to cater to each other as they drive all over the map running their respective errands, visiting their respective houses, workplaces, kids’ activities, etc. And speaking of kids’ activities, how about people with families and family obligations? And even for lack of all of that, this is the United States of America, where some people value (perhaps above all else) their ability to come and go as they please, to be in control of their own whereabouts. I’m not giving that up. You can pry that from my cold, dead hands.

If planners continue to pour asphalt on the traffic problem, they should expect to erect sound barriers and support vehicle emissions testing.

Oh give me a goddamn break. Harry Blofeld from Bob’s Construction Company is supposed to test my car for emissions, eh? Yeah, that thing that just punched you in the back of your stupid empty head is called “reality,” please introduce yourself to it.

To contend that home buyers were aware of the problem when they bought is irresponsible.

How? How is it irresponsible? At the very least, how is it any more irresponsible than your stupid idea to make contruction workers emissions-test cars? You moved here by choice; nobody put a gun to your head. You could have done some research before you bought your beloved house. You could have rented first to check out the area and get acclamated. You could have come down to visit for a while and asked the locals. But noooo, that’s not your responsibility. You had no way of knowing anything about the town you just bought a house in. No way at all! You were ushered in with a blindfold on, signed the mortgage papers in a locked security cell with no windows and only after you owned the property did you step outside and ask, “Now, where am I living, again?” God. The stupidity of this claim is almost more than I can stand without exploding into flaming fragments.

Accepting the noise generated by a two-lane thoroughfare hardly equates to acceptance of a mega-lane highway. Too often, lovely neighborhoods and tax-paying residents are ignored as the asphalt flows.

I beg to differ; it’s the tax-paying residents whom the city and county are listening to as they widen our roads and improve our infrastructure (albeit apparently as slowly as humanly possible). Haven’t you noticed that the local paper has been devoting entire pages to letters they’ve received from taxpayers like you and me, screaming about the traffic problems? What should they do, ignore them? And if you purchase a house on a major thoroughfare, no matter how big it is at the time, you should know it’s subject to change. The county (or city) owns that road and it’s their right-of-way. If you live in the city with the second-largest growth rate in the entire country (which Naples has the distinction of being), it’s beyond idiotic to claim ignorance when you moved in next to a major road, 2-lane or not. You wanted isolation? Why the fuck did you buy a house on a major thoroughfare, you fucking moron?

Oh, but I guess you are right about some taxpayers—there is a small contingent of them here and there whom we not-so-affectionately call NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard). It’s the complaints of these people that are partially responsible for the problems we have today; in one example, several years ago a local neighborhood vehemently opposed the county’s plans to widen a road from 2 lanes to 6, and instead kept it down to only 4. Now, that road is choking with congestion, and studies show that if it had been widened to 6 lanes in proper anticipation of area growth, we wouldn’t be so far up shit creek. Oops. Guess those taxpayers had all of our best interests at heart, right? Hah—they just had their own fucking property at heart. What else is new. To parody Suze Orman: “Property values first, then people, then things!”

This can and must cease! We are eliminating the very reasons tourists flock here — and where would our economy be without them?

Uhhh…it would shrink, which would reduce our traffic congestion and just about everything else? I still think that these people who claim Naples would magically cease to exist without tourism are full of crap. I know I’d still have a job. County regulations would be forced to adapt to the changing economy, making it financially easier for service-oriented businesses to operate. We wouldn’t simply vanish at the drop of a hat. And if we did…well, wouldn’t people like this letter-writer get exactly what they want?

Envision a ghost town of mega-highways. Weeds sprout from the cracks in the asphalt. Geckos scamper fearlessly across the road.

Sounds great to me. I’ll take my Trans Am out on those deserted highways and tickle the 159-MPH governor, with the T-tops off and the wind blowing in my hair, and no blue-hairs in Lincolns to be seen. You want to join me? Pssh.

The occasional tour bus from Fort Myers brings the curious to ponder, “What happened to Naples?” It was once the crown jewel of Florida’s gulf coast.

You know what happened to Naples? You happened to it. I happened to it. Tens of thousands of other people, looking for a better life and a beautiful place to live, happened to it, and while it’s irritating for five months out of the year, I don’t resent it, nor do I regret it. If you want a crown jewel to keep all to yourself, move to Montana and build a ranch or something. You can’t expect to have paradise and keep it a secret, do you? Again—that’s reality behind you. I suggest you get acquainted.

Well, that was the end of the letter. I’ll go back to living my life productively now, and the letter-writer can go back to her underground bunker and eat a box of Wheat Thins so she doesn’t have to venture out of her house on a major thoroughfare and see all the people clogging up her beloved crown jewel which, apparently, she seems to think she created and has exclusive usage rights to.

Bon appetit.

Categorized as Rants