I had dinner the other night with a fellow from Perth who ran an 800 car garage in the West Coast Australian City. He was grousing about the fact that the city had installed numerous electronic signs throughout the metropolitan area and was directing people to parking structures, but only city owned parking structures. He was muttering about “restraint of trade” and “city owned monopolies.” When he came back down to earth he made a good point.
The city was touting the signage as a “green” feature. That is, since people could find parking spaces more quickly and thus save on “cruising” and reduce the amount of fuel used and hence the amount of dreaded carbon put into the atmosphere. Fair enough, he noted, however often people following the signs drove past his open spaces to go to garages owned by the city, thus actually INCREASING the amount of carbon put in the atmosphere.
I told him to hire the consultant sitting next to him for a study to find how much additional carbon was put into the environment due to the city signage issue, and then send the study to the local council, and the newspapers.
Problem solved.
JVH
