The Airplane cell phone lot

This is a rant with two parts, actually.

First, I don't really believe in picking people up from the airport if you live in a city with good public transportation. In most cases, it is much easier for the person arriving to take the train or a cab than for you to go pick them up. If I come visit you in a big city, just tell me where to meet you. I'll make it happen. No need for you to have to drive all the way out to the airport and navigate the hideous traffic and gross congestion of people circling around.

The exceptions are, of course, implied: large bags/suburbs,/foreign country/injured/bereaved. What precisely is the difference between greeting someone at their home and greeting someone while they are in the driver's seat of their car slightly harried from the traffic and mean security folks? Why, in the former scenario you can hug and smile and be friendly whereas in the latter it's more of a "hi-shove-your-bags-in-the-back-so-good-to-see-you-ok-stop-honking-now-I'll-merge." One can argue that the person being picked up will be harried by having to navigate the airport-to-home transfer, but to that I say...seriously? Only if there was pre-existing duress or the number of homeless drunks on the blue line is really above average or the cabbie won't shut up. If the traffic is hideous it'll be no more or less hideous in a cab than it would be in my car, and I won't have spent 40 minutes getting through it once already.

Ahem. The above aside, I also respect that most people (at least those in this midwestern city) disagree with me and find being picked up at the airport a basic human kindness and my reluctance to so do selfish and uncaring. Thus, I drive to the airport. A lot. If you come to visit me and expect a ride from the airport please try not to arrive during rush hour.

Here is part 2.

The City of Chicago, in its wisdom, designated one parking lot near O'Hare as the "cell phone waiting lot". Many other airports have these as well, but I'm mostly going to explain the situation at ORD. Just imagine it applying to your home airport. The concept is simple: a parking lot removed from the general airport traffic where you can park and stay with your car while waiting for the person you are picking up to arrive. FOR FREE.

Now, I have heard from many Chicagoans that you haven't seen the signs for this, were not aware of the option, etc. This makes me a little nervous, as there are 3 or 4 signs, all very prominent. The first right as you exit toward the airport (cell phone lot: exit 2a Manheim rd. north), then on the first blinking sign (no curbside waiting / use cell lot / exit 2a / no curbside waiting), and then again right before exit 2a (big blue billboard "cell phone lot this exit"). I think there's even another one after you are past exit 2a, which is a little bit useless. When the first introduced the lot -- 4 or 5 years ago, I think -- there was even more signage and adverts throughout the actual airport.

I mean this with as little snark as possible: people, why don't you use the damn cell lot?

Here's what happens when you take exit 2a: you drive into a parking lot that is mostly empty. you sit there. When the person you are picking up calls to say they have landed, you leisurely start up the car and drive to the terminal. If they have bags to pick up you'll still have to circle the terminals at least twice. If they don't, it'll time out pretty well. And while you were waiting you had your car out of the way and turned off. Heck, they'll never even know you weren't circling the entire time.

You know we have a problem with gas usage in this country, right?

Here's what happens when you don't take exit 2a: you join a crowd of cars trying to break the "no curbside waiting" rule. Some pulled up along the lane, others parked on the shoulder just up above where the security trucks normally troll. On a Sunday night it can take 10 minutes to get from the split where the arrivals area is left and departures right to the end of terminal 1, 50 feet away, because too many cars are trying to merge across all four lanes. There is general confusion, lane merging, honking, and general obnoxiousness. It's the only time when midwestern drivers find their inner Bostonian (though that may be overstating it. Their inner "Bostonian on a relaxed Sunday" more than "Bostonian getting to a plane", which is likely where my aversion to airport traffic comes from in the first place).

If all those cars that were waiting for people still on planes in the air went to the cell phone lot instead of endlessly wasting gas circling the terminal there would be less traffic and confusion, less gas wasted on circling or hovering, and all the arriving passengers would be picked up more efficiently.

So please, use the damn cell phone lot.

(Hybrid) SUVs

This borders on the non-trivial, but my ire is perhaps disproportionate, so I think the theme holds. Feel free to comment if I'm wrong.

There are precisely two scenarios where owning an SUV is acceptable: you live in an area with rough access (mountains, dirt roads that cross streams, no roads at all) or you simply must tow other things behind your car. And actually, in the second case, I'm not convinced.

There is no rationale--none--for owning an SUV in the city. I'll bet that Dixie's old Jetta station wagon had more trunk space than any mid-sized SUV. As for the behemoth SUVs, there is no excuse. Most people do not need to drive that much stuff around on a regular basis. If you have many kids, then minivan. If you run a business, a van. If, like Dixie, you find yourself hauling heavy things--props, scenery, musical equipment--every day, then an adorable pick-up truck makes a lot of sense.

Furthermore, many people who say they "need" the space claim that because once a year they go on a big road trip or help a friend move. This is an irresponsible way to calculate what type of vehicle you "need". What should go into the calculation is the daily/weekly routine. The exceptions can be efficiently dealt with as they come up.

I know that SUVs were, for a time, cool. This is on the face of it absurd, and luckily we mostly got over that when gas prices went through the roof and people realized that driving enormous and inefficient vehicles was not a smart move. See: collapse of the American car industry.

I'm sure you all know why I am anti-SUV. In a nutshell, I care a little about the environment. As my sister likes to put it, I care enough not to be an asshole, but not so much as to inconvenience all my friends or completely give up on the comforts of modern life. SUVs are absurd by any measure.

However, buying a new car before you need one is also environmentally irresponsible. If you currently own an SUV in good repair, the most responsible thing to do is to keep driving it until it is dead (or sell it to someone who will do the same). The only purpose for a hybrid SUV is to make people feel like they are making a responsible, hip, green choice by buying one.

This is wrong. I am by no means an expert, but my research indicates that hybrid SUVs are less efficient than most normal, non-hybrid, cars. While there are some minor fuel savings when directly compared with station wagons or bigger sedans, those are for the most part offset by manufacturing methods and materials, not to mention driving styles (if you want a screed on that, email me. I don't want to bore everyone).

In the interest of full disclosure, I have an 8-year old Prius. I got it in February 2001 (happy birthday car!) and for the first two years was often stopped at red lights to answer questions about my weird car. Strangers in parking lots wanted to know if I had to plug it in, and whether I was worried about electrocution (no to both). At the time, I was optimistic that by the time I needed a new car, the hybrid would be obsolete. It was, in 2001, so obviously a bridge technology. Oh, how wrong I was. My Prius is showing signs of age, and it is still cutting edge. So while I support hybrid technology, I'm really sad that it is not further on the way toward obsolescence.

Back to hybrid SUVs. My major problem is that unless you belong to the small subset of people for whom driving an SUV is a necessity, a hybrid SUV is still an irresponsible choice of vehicle. Hybrid SUVs represent exactly the time of "green" consumerism that is actually bad for the environment, and come wrapped with a sense of smugness.

So please. If you just want the hybrid label, and think a Prius is ridiculous looking and tiny (true) consider a hybrid Camry. For the three days a year that you need more space, consider a UHaul ($20/day rental) or a clamshell for the top. Or ask Dixie if you can borrow her pick-up truck. It's super cute.

Parking Lots

Most of my ire on this subject has historically been directed toward the Whole Foods parking lot on Ashland, however, I was there yesterday and the direction signs seem to have entirely faded (THEY'VE GIVEN UP) and thus my righteous indignation is less righteous. However. Back to the point:

In many parking lots there are arrows painted on the ground showing the direction of traffic. I point this out because most of you don't seem to notice this. You know why those arrows are there? Because if people obey them, we'll all get out of the lot faster, with fewer accidents, and in an orderly fashion.

I live in a city. Even in this city with lots of land, most parking lots are not big enough for each lane to be two-directional and for cars to pull in and out easily. It may seem sometimes that it will be quicker to cut across several lanes in the wrong direction. If it's 4am and there's no one there, sure. That seems reasonable. But at, say, 6:30pm on a weekday at a grocery store...no. Unacceptable.

But, you say, if I don't do that the car over there will get that space I see! That perfect space. True. That may be true. But you know what? I'm in that car over there, and I followed the god damn rules, and you're being an a-hole.

Ahem. Rudeness aside, going the wrong direction also causes the entire system to slow down. Cars can't pull out of spaces for fear of hitting everyone else. The cars with their lights blinking waiting for the other cars that are pulling out sometimes have to back up and go around. (only to have their slots stolen by a-holes, most likely). It all becomes dangerous, slow, and incredibly frustrating.

Anyone who has occasion to be near the aforementioned Whole Foods on a weekday after work can attest to this. Traffic will back up for blocks as people can't turn off the street into the lot because there's too much traffic within the lot. Some of that is not fixable. But most of it is, or would be if they hadn't given up and let the arrows fade. (Also, the problem at this lot is compounded by the fact that the Whole Foods patrons seem loath to use the indoor adjacent parking lot that is also free. So there will often be many empty spaces inside while a dozen cars back up traffic for blocks with their idiotic, non-arrow-following, ways).

I see three solutions:
1) Bikes and backpacks
2) Get rid of surface parking. Move it all into lots underground with their elaborate one-way lanes.
3) Stop being a-holes. Follow the rules.