Defending our cars, our freedom    
Saturday, January 26. 2008
By Aaron Crowley,
Oregon Small Business Association

Of all the symbols of independence in America, the automobile stands out. Nothing else gives a man the ability to take any road or highway to wherever he wants to go, whenever he so desires.

The Oregonian apparently has a problem with this in a recent article.

In a column about Randy O’toole’s recent seminar on planning, the reporter choses to mock Houston, TX residents as having a “love affair with the automobile.” I think it is time to stand in solidarity with our freedom loving friends from the great state of Texas and point out that it isn’t so much the vehicle itself we are in love with.

It is the freedom of unrestricted movement it allows us all to enjoy.

I am assuming that is precisely the problem the reporter has with the unfettered movement the automobile provides…If it doesn’t run on tracks to a pre- selected destination, then it isn’t mass transit.

And that is a threat to her utopian dream of every family in a town home, and a Max pass in every pocket.