Len Sullivan lives in Bethesda and advocates for automobility

while he does some great work with his NARPAC organization, his position is determined in large part by where he lives and how he gets around.

So why does Channel 4 use him as a primary source of opposition to enhancing mobility within DC through the introduction of streetcars?

See ""Cars To Come Back To D.C. Not Everyone Happy To See Street Cars Come Back."

I love one of his comments about streetcars on K Street--"pedestrians are a nuisance"-- from one of his reports. See below, from the 1/14/2004 issue of themail:

Is NARPAC Really a Commuter Lobby?
Richard Layman, Northeast DC

Until recently, I had always been impressed by the reportage and analysis of Len Sullivan-NARPAC. However, I was troubled by a recent post (themail, January 4, “New Year’s Notion for Commuters to DC”) that I felt was unduly critical of DC residents. In the January 7 issue of themail, NARPAC announces an analysis of the proposed K Street busway. A number of the statements in the report are troubling. One section is entitled: “Pedestrians are a major nuisance.” Another statement is “Sidewalks are now used inefficiently due to the narrowing caused by curbside trees with their root grates, etc.” And “Lost parking must be accommodated (and expanded) somewhere. It is essential to get people out of their cars downtown, but not by trying to get Americans to give up their second most desired possession.”

On the latter point, I will say that the public space was not originally created to provide parking for personally-owned vehicles. Parking is a privilege, not a right, and providing parking spaces isn't the primary development priority that suburbanites believe we should take up. (Jane Jacobs would say something like, “You are asking the wrong question. The question isn't 'why aren't there more parking spaces?' The real question is 'why are there so many cars?', or 'why do so many people want to drive knowing there aren't more parking spaces?'”)

To truly be a transit city, we must constantly improve and expand transit systems. It is encouraging to see the various initiatives of the DC Department of Transportation to do so, such as via the proposed K Street busway. Another is to encourage the use of transit by making less preferred modes more difficult and expensive to use. Providing maximum parking tears at the urban fabric and streetscape without encouraging the use of transit. Parking tickets are a “positive” disincentive that ought to encourage “rational economic-thinking” people to use other modes of transit. Instead, people blame the ticketer or the situation, instead of their decision to drive and park (perhaps illegally) in the first place. This relates to a serious concern faced by DC's advocates for a “livable city.”

The US is dominated by an automobile-centric planning and development paradigm. Most every person in the region, including those who live in the city, has been imprinted with that paradigm without realizing that it is but one choice. Just one example is that there are plenty of people who think the solution to revitalization of our neighborhood commercial districts is in the demolition of the adjoining residential neighborhoods in favor of parking.

I fall into the trap of arguing with people about this lunacy, rather than just walking away ruing the fact that they've never read Jane Jacobs Death and Life of Great American Cities. The “teachable moment” so often when the entire worldview of the “student” is shaped by the automobile. It is troubling that forty-two years after the publication of that book, people who allegedly care about the city think that planning for the pedestrian and focusing on urban design and the streetscape is a “nuisance” and that we should be focused on making life simple and free for car drivers.