My Modest Proposal to End Global Warming, Revitalize General Aviation, and End Our Dependence on Foreign Oil

Vast numbers of automobiles with 2 or 3 or more cars per household;
long commutes of single drivers; horrible freeway congestion; urban
sprawl; loss of farmland and wilderness resources; the decay of cities
and the takeover of large areas of our cities by lawless gangs; obesity
caused by everyone eating at fast food joints; dependence on foreign
oil; global warming; pollution; filth, crud, corruption; hundreds of
thousands dead in traffic accidents; the closure of local airports
because of expanding city growth:

All of these problems can be traced to the rise of the superhighway. We
built it, and everybody moved out of town in an ever-increasing spiral
of flight to a chimera of utopian suburbia. The only people left in the
cities were a few of the very rich who understood city life and a lot
of the extremely poor and desperate. People forgot their responsibility
to their fellow man because their fellow man who needed help now lived
in that awful place fifty miles away. City parks were taken over by
drug users and prostitutes because they were the only ones left.
Schools, well, schools were simply abandoned to their fate.

The only reason people really live so far from where the work is
because of the freeway. They thought they would be happy out there, but
demonstrably they are not. So they keep moving further away, never
finding happiness, dragging the culture and amenities of the city
behind them. They wanted to live in quiet farmland, but they wanted
shopping like they had in the city, so they built huge shopping malls
and then complained that it was too much like the city and moved even
further away. They didn't like nosy people telling them how to live in
the city, so they moved to neighborhoods with restrictive covenants and
complained. It is madness.

Much of the only land available was near small town airports, so they
demanded that the airports be closed and developed into more suburbs or
golf courses. The trains were shut down as freight was transferred to
the new railroad of the freeways as trucks pulled entire chains of
trailers behind them across country.

It is time to reverse this trend! Vote no on new freeways! Vote no even
for maintenance! Elect people who will dynamite the freeways! Elect
incompetents who will allow the freeways to die of well-deserved
neglect! Here in Washington State we have been doing that for decades,
but only half-heartedly. Now is the time to finish the job!

When people realize that suburbia is not the answer, they will move
back to the cities where they will be happier and those who have to
live and work in the hinterland and remain behind will be happier.
Automobile usage will be cut by more than half, along with its
attendant use of petroleum.

Of course, those who still live out in the sticks will need some other
way to get around. This will be the rail lines, just like in the old
days, or they will fly, as God intended. New airports will spring up
like flowers after a rain. Flight instructors will be busy. The little
planes will no longer bother anybody because everyone will realize they
are necessary. Aircraft manufacturers will finally have the incentive
to innovate and produce airplanes in reasonable numbers.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor