Shot in the Dark

Success Is Failure

Joe Doakes from Como park emails:

Suppose you build a better mousetrap and the world beats a path to your door. That’s a good thing, right? Creativity? Progress? Jobs?

No, it’s a public nuisance, all those people driving their cars to your store, tying up traffic, idling engines (which cause global climate change). Cars backed up in the turning lane interfere with bicycles, the ne plus ultra of moral superiority and the highest form of virtue signaling there is.

The City must shut you down, for the good of all. Heinlein was right.

Joe Doakes

See also: the Starbucks at Snelling at Marshall in St. Paul.

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6 responses to “Success Is Failure”

  1. FRESCHFISCH Avatar
    FRESCHFISCH

    The people of CA need to push back harder.

    First, school board candidates, then city council members.

  2. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    The people of CA need to push back harder.

    First, school board candidates, then city council members.

    And District Attorneys.

  3. Night Writer Avatar
    Night Writer

    The Chick-fil-A in my neighborhood – perhaps knowing the kind of elected Karens in the area – designed their store with TWO side-by-side drive-thru lanes. These are often both filled, but they don’t extend out into neighboring Target parking lot.

    I have often spotted delivery cars for other restaurants in those lanes with me.

  4. mjb003 Avatar
    mjb003

    “See also: the Starbucks at Snelling at Marshall in St. Paul.” That’s exactly what I thought of, as well as all the other businesses that have tried to set up shop in the Midway area, which have been denied variances because, “OMG, someone might drive a car there.” Most recently, a laundromat applied for a variance to set up shop at Fry and Snelling. They were denied because “we can’t have cars at a laundromat. All you poor renters in your rent controlled apartments need to haul your family’s laundry right out in the open on the train, with a bike, with a wheeled cart.” So, we are at a point in time when a vacant, weed strewn lot with boarded up businesses is better than having a functioning economy in a neighborhood. They do have a point that enough vacant lots and boarded up buildings will probably keep the cars out- oh, except on soccer game days. The stadium was somehow lucky enough to get a large variance for parking and cars.

  5. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    mjb, that’s crazy.

  6. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    all those people driving their cars to your store, tying up traffic, idling engines (which cause global climate change). Cars backed up in the turning lane interfere with bicycles, the ne plus ultra of moral superiority and the highest form of virtue signaling there is.

    Traffic clusterf**ks are the bread-and-butter for civil engineers– creating them as much as solving them.

    The idling car engines is something I’ve noticed for years. If I’m sitting in a slow-moving drive-thru line, I do the math and turn the engine off after inching forward. Modern cars have systems where the engine shuts itself while you’re idling at a stoplight, and restarts automatically when push on the accelerator. Unless your vehicle has mechanical issues, or you’re sitting in the car in the dead of winter, where such a practice equates to a game of Russian roulette (we’ve all been there), it’s a matter of discipline. I’d never advocate for using high gas prices to encourage people to drive more conservatively and idle their vehicles less, but it’s a behavior change one sees when prices spike.

    Meanwhile, the progressive Left wants us to spend more on passenger rail, which will block traffic more. Know what I notice at railroad crossings? A bunch of motorists with their engines running while a half-mile-long freight train crosses.

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