Another reason to bike

    I read in the paper today about how the rates for parking at the Republic parking lots are going up. Expect to pay $9 if parking for over two hours in the lots in the center of downtown.
Tourists will pay that. I go to other cities and find myself paying what, to a Chattanoogan, is totally outrageous rates. But I do it.

   But I do wonder about the locals deciding to go out to eat whether that will influence their choice. It does me. If Q and I are thinking about going out to eat, whether we are on our bikes or in a car greatly influences our choice. The parking of the car is troublesome so we tend to go to places where that problem is easily solved.

   But it always reminds me how troublesome a car can be.  Think about how much baggage we take around in the form of a vehicle and we expect to be provided a convenient and hopefully cheap place to put it.  Most of our parking is subsidized and we get put out when we have to pay the true cost of parking.  I know I do-I am the queen of lets find the cheap (or even better the free) parking place.But then I get impatient if the hunt for such a space has me circling around and around, getting furthur and furthur away from my target.  I often start wishing I was on my bike to avoid all that and of course a bike to ride the sometimes far distances I have to walk from my car.  Bikes can be a wonder for the lazy, cheap, and impatient parkers!