The writer of the Dec. 2 letter in Peninsula Voices, “PT traffic,” asks if anyone has an idea about the lines of traffic coming in and going out of Port Townsend.
There are probably multiple reasons, but I suggest consideration of what tourism does to a community.
Long lines of cars are coming in, especially on weekends, to enjoy the pretty Victorian seaport and tourist shops of Water Street.
And the cars going out?
These are the workers who can’t afford to live in a tourist town — teachers, restaurant workers, hotel cleaners.
You’ll see exactly the same phenomenon in Aspen, Colo. — endless lines of cars leaving the town they serve around 4 p.m to 5 p.m. every day — to go “down valley” to live in trailers.
A “ski-bum shack” in Aspen costs upward of a million bucks.
The town is full of houses empty most of the time that are owned by multimillionaires and billionaires.
It’s called class privilege, and we’re likely to see a lot more of it before it collapses.
Robert Greenway,
Port Townsend