The result, safe communities, recharged groundwater and healthier salmon habitat. We live and are moved in our actions by a market economy, and the predilections of the market have frustrated environmentalists for years. We can create a market for conservation measures. Tradable permits for sulpher dioxide emissions have cut in half this sort of pollution and very little cost. Deregulating parking and changing the way we sell car insurance could go a long way toward reducing driving.
Current laws treat free parking as a nontaxable fringe benefit.
If workers could take the cash each month instead of using the free parking space, driving to work would decrease and carpooling and transit use would increase. Cities need to reform laws that require acres of parking for each new building. This reduces material packaging and encourages the use of recyclable and nontoxic materials in production. US companies like Xerox, Herman-Miller and Interface carpet are already finding that this sort of corporate responsibility makes good business sense. Curb Handouts Sprawl and natural resource destruction often seem to win out over more sensible ways of doing things because they are the cheapest way to go.