Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!wisen
From: wisen@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Palo Alto, employers, showers. - (nf)
Message-ID: <273@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Aug-83 05:40:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.273
Posted: Wed Aug 24 05:40:35 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Aug-83 04:55:46 EDT
Lines: 57

#N:inmet:6400046:000:3413
inmet!wisen    Aug 23 11:43:00 1983

   Regarding Palo Alto's shower regulations:
  As I see it, government has the same right to require shower installation
as it has to build roads, because both projects improve regional
transportation facilities, although in bizarrely different ways.
   <"A shower is a transportation facility!?">
  It sure is.  If you live close enough to work that you can cycle the 
distance, then the constraints against cycling to work are probably 
1) I've always driven to work, why should I change now?
2) It might rain on me.
3) I don't want to smell up the office.
   For me, (3) is a major constraint.  I suspect likewise for others.
  I formerly worked downtown for a company that had no showers, no bicycle 
parking,
and very scarce auto-parking.  In fact it was across the street from Fenway
Park, and nearly impossible to navigate a car to work during Red Sox games.
Public transportation was quite adequate during the winter, spring, and fall,
but in summer everybody sweated on the bus and smelled as if they had 
jogged into work.  For this job, I rarely took a bicycle to work, but when 
I did, I  got there twice as fast as the bus.
   Presently, I work at a company that has bicycle parking and showers, and
is in a fairly auto-congested area.   I bicycle to work about 95% of the
time, save at least 40 minutes over the public transit, and don't add an auto
to the rush-hour congestion ( I live so close to work that a car won't get
me there significantly faster ).
   Now, if you are a government transportation administrator, and if you
believe that the government has the right to build roads, enact and enforce
traffic regulations, build public transit, and do various and sundry other
things to keep the traffic moving;  if you are constrained in budget by
a public that has voted into law a severe property-tax cap (proposition 13);
if you administer a boom-town such that your construction projects which
are adequate for today's needs are inadequate 10 years hence;  and if your
public gets severely annoyed at the disruption of large highway construction
projects;  then you should do everything in your power to reduce the public
need for autos before embarking on multi-billion dollar construction projects
that tear up the neighborhood streets.   Since this isn't a totalitarian 
state, you can't require citizens to car-pool, walk, etc., but you can
probably regulate employers so as to remove the obstacles to car-pooling,
cycle-commuting, etc.   
  I don't know that much about Palo Alto, but I suspect that the city has a
good idea.  If I were a traffic administrator, I would have given the
companies a big tax break for installing showers, rather than requiring
showers.
   Since I've never jogged to work, I don't know if that's a practical way
to commute.
   Note that I haven't brought up the issue of a healthy work force.  That
would be hypocritical of me, since I enjoy cycling enough that I would 
probably continue cycling even after the Surgeon General determined that it
was hazardous to my health, and even after the Sierra Club claimed that
cycling was bad for the environment.  (Whenever I find cute baby seals in
the middle of the road, I club them to death with my bicycle pump).
   Next time you commute by auto and see a cycling commuter, don't think
of him/her as a slow obstacle, think of him/her as one less competitor  
for a parking space.
----------Bruce Wisentaner