THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 5, 1995 TAG: 9508040024
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
There's the story about the fellow who got on the bus, spotted a friend and sat down beside him. ``What are you doing riding the bus?'' the friend asked. ``We're only a two-car family,'' the fellow replied.
They both laughed. But truth is many American families, not all of them affluent, depend on three cars, maybe four, to meet travel demands of school, work, chores, shopping, recreation, etc.
In Alexandria the number of registered motor vehicles (104,000) approaches the total population (115,000), and vehicles actually outnumber people of driving age by 4,000. Traffic jams are no longer confined to rush hour; parking is virtually always a hassle; getting a car into a shop for repairs can take days.
It's a demographic thing, explains City Manager Vola Lawson. ``The average resident is a single person who has never been married, and that person needs a car'' - even the 20 percent of employed residents who use public transport to get to and from work.
Alexandria may be an exception today, but statistics show a nationwide trend toward every adult owning a car.
Americans' love affair with the automobile is legend. There's nothing like the convenience and comfort - even more perhaps the sense of freedom - of having your own horseless carriage.
But in part, this is a practical necessity. People are much more mobile today, not just moving across the state or across the country but also circulating within their community.
Even if public transportation weren't just a bare remnant of what it once was, it couldn't get us quickly and conveniently to all the places we go; those places are much more scattered. Mammoth supermarkets and pharmacies in shopping centers have replaced the neighborhood grocery and the corner drugstore.
Few people, we suspect, pay attention to how much money they actually invest in buying, insuring, licensing, maintaining, repairing and operating their vehicles. Two large car payments, and that's not uncommon, can block a young couple from qualifying for a home mortgage, symbol of another American dream.
And few motorists, we'd guess, consider how the ever-rising number of cars imposes demands on government for roads, traffic control and maintenance, not to mention things like safety, noise pollution and dirty air.
Still, the glut seems destined to worsen - and to exact its heavy price - because acceptable alternatives are scarce. by CNB