Letters to the editor for March 10

Stop the gas station at the park

The Lacey City Council and Planning Department staff are pushing through a business that risks the health and safety of the children in our community. A gas station has been proposed across the street from our widely used Meridian Community Park at the corner of Willamette Boulevard and Campus Glen Drive Northeast.

This location endangers families who use the park and neighborhood Salish Middle School students who do not receive district transportation and would be required to walk directly in front of this gas station. This business would increase traffic into and out of the neighborhood from the nearby industrial park, channeling cars directly past Salish. And the potential for air, light, and noise pollution in a fully residential area also increases from the filling station tanks, fueling cars, and a commercial business open at all hours with signage, lighted fuel pump areas, and the traffic going in and out of the property which directly abuts a residential community.

This business is inappropriate for any neighborhood. We don’t want it moved to someone else’s backyard. No other city parks have gas stations so close to them. Many gas stations and mini-marts already exist on nearby Marvin Road and Martin Way. Once in a car, taking a few extra minutes to reach them is worth the safety of our neighborhood and our children.

Stop the unneeded and unwanted gas station at Meridian Community Park!

Cheryl Ricevuto, Lacey

A ‘15-minute city’ challenge for elected officials

La Ville du Quart D’Heure, or the 15 Minute City, is a concept and urban planning challenge. The idea, in basic terms, is that every aspect of a person’s city life can be accessed by all modes of transportation within 15 minutes. This means walking, cycling, and public transportation. Many cities struggle to achieve this, because of accessibility to transit or sprawl. In other words, things are too far away or the means of getting places (not by car) do not exist.

In Olympia, Tumwater, and Lacey, it might seem like an impossible task. Yet, the only way we can know if it is possible is on the ground level — by seeing things not at 30+ mile per hour speed but at the human scale. Therefore, I, a resident of Olympia, am formally challenging local and regional government elected officials to try traveling by foot, bicycle, and public transit for 30 days.

As you go about this challenge, try to consider the time it will take you to get places, the built environment you see, and inconveniences that exist in our infrastructure. Try to imagine how we can make things closer to the human scale. This challenge, I hope, will help gain needed perspective. The only way we can try to understand the problems we face is by attempting to see things not in our comfort zone. Please allow yourself the chance to live by the changes of the day.

Robert Vanderpool, Olympia

To fight climate change, allow imports of European electric cars

While I understand that there are more immediately pressing concerns, climate change must remain at the forefront of our legislative agenda. I therefore encourage Sen. Cantwell, Sen. Murray and Rep. Strickland to work on legislation to allow the sale of electric vehicles approved for use in Europe in the U.S.

U.S. automakers (along with international corporations selling in the U.S.) have opted to discontinue sale of smaller, more efficient vehicles and concentrated instead on larger, more expensive vehicles like SUVs and trucks. In doing so, they’re preventing lower-income people and families from gaining the benefits of the EV transition, and at the same time requiring the U.S. to invest even more in infrastructure than would already be required for the transition as we attempt to accommodate increasingly large vehicles. I cannot count the number of times I’ve had frustrated individuals contact me, in my role as a transportation journalist, and ask when a smaller, cheaper EV will come to the U.S.

The crash safety requirements of European vehicles are broadly comparable to the U.S., and since U.S. companies have declined to produce the smaller, more efficient vehicles seen in Europe, allowing other makers to import vehicles with a lower bar to entry might finally spur competition in the lower end of the market.

The protectionist U.S. policy preventing even individual or small company imports makes no sense when there is no domestic equivalent.

Katherine Walton-Elliott, Olympia