I Want My SUV: Do Drivers Need to be Defended?

By Whitney Teal

Talking up just about any development in Montgomery County and using the buzz words “walkable” or “transit-oriented” as a drinking game catalyst would make anyone really drunk, really fast. It’s the oft-stated gold standard of good living to which neighborhoods from White Flint to Wheaton to White Oak aspire—according to county planners.

But do residents really want to walk more and drive less?

A reader of The Washington Post’s “Dr. Gridlock” column offered a rebuttal to the suggestion that Metro, or any other place in the suburbs, shouldn’t orient itself around parking garages.

“People who live in the suburbs do so because they don’t want the hassles and stresses of urban life, and a big part of those hassles and stresses is parking,” wrote Jim Cohen of Bethesda. “Suburbanites tend to have families, and time and convenience are at a premium.”

Cohen goes on to say that government should not be in the behavior-changing business.

“It is the job of government to meet the needs of its citizens, not to dictate what lifestyle they should lead and use the levers of public policy to coerce them into a lifestyle that does not suit them,” Cohen wrote.

What do you think? Should people, at the government’s insistence, get out of their cars and walk more? Should government do more to accommodate drivers? Tell us in the comments.