Reply to Will DC resume commuter traffic patterns in the fall?

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Reply to "Will DC resume commuter traffic patterns in the fall?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Not PP, but how privileged it is of you to place the burden for figuring out how to get back and forth to work without a car on employees when it is the employers who dictate whether WFH is an option. Many folks don't have the option to telecommute 2-3 days/week. Many folks cannot just "get a job closer to where they live." Many folks cannot "move closer to where they live." Many folks don't live near viable public commuting options. This may come as a surprise to you. Perhaps you are young, white and earn more than $75K/year and are in a position to make these choices. Many of the rest of us simply aren't.

Many folks cannot physically ride a bike many miles to work. Many of us have to pick up kids, groceries, and other heavy things on the way home. It is unrealistic and naive of you to think that all of this can be done on a bike -- particularly in the rain, on ice, or in the snow. That you yourself manage to do it does not mean that everyone else should be expected to do so.

So, please take your messaging and advocacy for a car-less society to the appropriate audience: employers who dictate that folks must commute in; city planners who failed to put in adequate, wide-spread, and affordable public transportation (a $12/day round-trip bus-Metro commute that eats up 2 hours/day is not going to meet this criteria, BTW, for somene who's paid $75K/year before taxes which is approx. $56K net); and employers who keep getting away with discriminatory hiring practices (e.g., ageism, racism, sexism) that prevent true job mobility (ever tried to get hired as a 55-year-old black man?).

In the meantime, please leave all of us who are struggling to make ends meet, who are digging quarters out of the dryer to add to a Metro card just to get back and forth to work, who have kids to pick up at camp, at school, from the babysitter, from a friend's house, who need to shop for more than a couple days' worth of groceries, who need to lug home several pounds of books, sports equipment, laptops, and whatnot home in backpacks and briefcases, or who need to take groceries to elderly parents after work or take them or kids to the doctor's, dentist's, or Target to get supplies for a school project, etc. on a weeknight already filled with errands -- ALONE![/quote]

Presumably, if you must drive, and you can't drive on Beach Drive, then you will figure out a different driving route.

In the big picture, though: obody is stopping you from driving. What you want is not to be left alone. What you want is for the government to continue to prioritize convenient car-commuting over every other consideration. That's what the government has done in the past. But it's increasingly unlikely that local governments will continue to do that in the future.[/quote]

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