‘Car ranching’ problem created by Seattle’s anti-car policies

Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio.

A Southeast Seattle resident has been blogging pictures of the cars that have been parked on his street for up to months without moving. He says he and others are fed up with the “car ranching.”

“There’s been several individuals who I think we call them ‘car hoarders’ or ‘car ranchers’ who use our street to leave their vehicles,” Karma Norman told KOMO TV.

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But isn’t this really a problem that was created by the city? They make it impossible to drive in this city. They rip up lanes for bikes which causes more congested streets. They make it incredibly expensive to park around Seattle.

They want the people who own cars here to have a disincentive to drive around. They would rather you go on a bike. They would rather you go on Metro. They would rather you walk to wherever it is you want to go.

But those people that they’re encouraging to change their habits, they still have their car. It takes a lot before they’ll actually decide to go ahead and sell that car. People like the freedom to be able to drive down to Tacoma to go to a concert, or to go to Woodinville for wine tasting.

A lot of people like the freedom of being able to jump in that car if they need to. I’m one of those people who don’t want to give up their car.

I have decided to change a lot of my habits. I don’t drive all that much. But I still have my car. So we may all change our habits, as I have, but we still have our car.

What exactly are we supposed to do with it? Where are we supposed to put it? Not everyone in the city can put their car in a parking garage. Not everyone in the city has driveways. Where are we supposed to put our cars?

These people in the city, especially if they choose to fully enforce this law, it’s just another example of them not giving a damn about the people in the city driving cars.

They want to make it so hard on you that you will be forced to get rid of your car because somehow that means you’re more noble – you choose not to pollute the environment.

The fact is people still need a car to get around Washington state. This is a problem created by a city that is not doing enough to accommodate people in the cars. Instead of offering more parking or coming up with solutions for people with cars, they’re making drivers look like the enemy. We have to do something about that.

Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio.

JS