Passage I

Parking Feud

[1]

There is an ominous feud fighting around my neighborhood, a part of town that was once a tranquil and idyllic place to live. The cause of the feud is parking spaces and the root of the problem, is that we all live on a cul-de-sac (a dead-end street with a place to turn around at its end). Cul-de-sacs are normally peaceful places to live because there is no through traffic.

[2]

The street, which curves past twenty houses and several apartment buildings and twists around small islands of shrubbery, looks pleasant enough. Cul-de-sacs, after all, are designed to reduce traffic and thus provide privacy, safety, and quiet. My neighbors and I used to enjoy the quietness of our street.

[3]

Rapidly, however, the peace in my neighborhood is vanishing. Part of the problem, is that we all own to many cars. When this area was developed, many of the households that moved in owned just one car. But our families grew larger, and our children became older and, now it seems as though two or three cars aren't enough. The street is always lined with our parked cars.

[4]

If we lived on a through street, such extravagance might be a bit more easily accommodated. We might always try to park as close to home as possible, but if all the nearby spaces are taken, we could drive around the block until we found a space. Then, grumbling heavily, walking home. In a cul-de-sac neighborhood, however, the parking options are few. (10) Along our entire street, it is possible to find not a single place to park a car.

[5]

In fact, in my neighborhood this evening, there are sure to be, tire's squealing, horns honking, and car doors slamming. We like each other, the frustration is now nearly uncontainable. Soon, I'm afraid, those of us, who return home late, will have to spend the evening double-parked in our cars. We will be served supper in our cars, and in the final analysis we will read, nap, or listen to the radio in our cars—ready in a moment to seize a free space or move the car if the police make one of their increasingly frequent stops in our once-quiet neighborhood.