The Cyclops of the Inquirer is at it again

Well, the Inquirer’s loony leader of the bicycle cult is at it again.

That would be semi-retired Cyclops Inga Saffron, the city’s best-known antagonist to autos, which she hates with a passion, per numerous columns.

She not only hates cars, she also hates anything associated with cars, such as curb cuts, on-street parking, off-street parking, garages and now parking lots.

Yes, parking lots, in her latest half-baked, irrational attack  on anything with four or more wheels. (She obviously hates trucks, too. Don’t ask her how she thinks her food gets from farm to market.)

Me? I haven’t owned a car since the ‘70s. But I like to drive and have access to my wife’s car, parked in a garage. [Disclosure: In 2022, I won a defamation suit against Saffron and the Inquirer.]

In a recent opinion column, Saffron starts with a given — a lack of affordable housing in Philadelphia. Not to mention the rest of the country. It is a true problem, and a national one.

From there, she skids sideways into a convenient villain — parking lots! To her, they are a “blight.”

Boiled down to the essence, her argument is that the parking lots in Center City are taking up valuable land that could be used for residential housing. If you follow the column two-thirds of the way down, and few will, in a rare moment of clarity, she acknowledges that developing housing units is very hard, and that has thwarted the desire of a major parking lot owner to develop them into housing. (Not to mention city red tape, and high costs that come with union contracts.)

Saffron apparently doesn’t read her own newspaper, which recently has carried stories about the trend of renovating underutilized office towers into housing.

Such as this story from April 3 reporting that conversion of offices to housing has doubled in the last year. Or this story from January about 273 apartments being added. Or this story from last May about six Center City office buildings that are being converted.

For the record, occupancy in Center City towers is way down in the wake of Covid and working from home policies. The smart money is betting they will never return to their original strength.

So, if Saffron had her eyes open, she would see a solution is already on the way. But she is a Cyclops. She has only one eye, and it has a sty called “cars.”

She is a huge proponent of bicycles, and when she was working would often bike to work, and encouraged others to do so. At the time, she lived less than three miles from the office. In other words, walking distance. But if you live in Mount Airy, well . . . 

She is the Bike Cult’s Ambassador Without Portfolio. Ms. Saddle Seat.

I am the bike cult’s nemesis.

I have nothing against bikes per se. I do oppose bike lanes and have written numerous columns explaining they take an inordinate amount of space, they slow auto traffic, which increases gas usage, and the number of bicycle commuters hovers around 2% no matter how many more bike lanes are added. Such as this one. 

Bike lanes are the reverse of the field of dreams — build them and they won’t come.

Let’s examine simple Saffron’s thesis. 

Let’s say — OK, we need more housing and there is a surface lot at 17th and Pine.

Do we need to remove the lot to build housing?

We do not.

We can build housing over the lot. Parking and housing are not mutually exclusive. How many high-rises have incorporated parking into building design? Too many to mention, from the older 1500 Locust Street to the newer Symphony House at Broad and Pine.

Or drop the lot to below street level, such as Liberty Place or Love Park.

But, no. Saffron opposes that. 

She hates cars, and by extension motorists, who she seems to view as Cro-Magnon, with no citizenship rights.

Where are car owners supposed to park?

She doesn’t know, and she doesn’t care.

She usually doesn’t resort to the well-worn ecology crutch — that cars pollute. Which is almost logical.

But no. She hates them because of how big they are and how they look.

She has never seen herself on a bicycle.