Class Warfare
Only in Berkeley:
After a moment of hesitation, Shana Rocklin lowers her voice and confesses. Yes, she owns three cars. Yes, she parks them on the streets of her curb-abundant neighborhood. And yes, she deserves to be punished.
In many other cities in America, her automobiles wouldn’t even be an afterthought. But this is not the wide-open Western plain or the freeway-blanketed landscape of southern California, where car ownership is seemingly the 11th article of the Bill of Rights. Here, in a city of causes that have ranged from the profound to the bizarre, today’s target is the clutter of extra automobiles.
In what would be the first law of its kind in the United States, Berkeley is considering a tax on residents who own more than two cars.
March 3rd, 2004 at 5:50 pm
Sometimes I wonder how I survived three years in Berkeley. Did it even occur to these bozos that if any families comply, they’ll probably sell off their low-polluting commuting cars and begin commuting in their SUVs? Or did they simply assume that anyone who owns three cars must drive all three of them at once?
March 3rd, 2004 at 6:49 pm
Part of the issue in Berkeley is finding parking for your vehicle as in many areas, there is only street parking which tends to fill up fast.
March 3rd, 2004 at 8:03 pm
Reminds me of what’s going on in London, where Red Ken has banned (I think) cars from the central city entirely. BBC Radio had a segment on the controversy, in which a shopkeeper (and a Frenchman, no less) said something like “When you have a scratch on your finger, do you cut off your arm?”