Photo by René DeAnda on Unsplash
There’s nothing more American than cars. That’s why Biden and the 117th Congress have both passed a bill supported by US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and the National Parking Association to modernize the White House. The White House Administration will put this historic structure to its best use by converting most of the building into the world’s largest free parking garage. Tourists will now be able to enjoy the White House without ever having to leave their car.
The retrofit will include 460 Tesla supercharger stations and a green roof on the top floor. However, the the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure rejected additional helicopter pads on the roof due to concerns about noise pollution in the historic district. There will be a bike parking sculpture on the fifth floor. It has been designed by a team of award-winning artists and can support as many as a dozen bicycles! Seating for pedestrians is also important, so the sculpture has a built-in bench at either end. Local bicycle and transportation advocacy groups opposed the garage until a representative from the National Parking Association pointed out that bicyclists can ride the elevator to the top level and then bike all the way back to the bottom.
For the convenience and security of the president, there will be a separate, dedicated garage attached directly to the Oval Office. As current and former presidents of the USA are not permitted to drive cars on the open road, Biden will have a presidential racetrack built into the basement. Biden looks forward to racing his 1967 Corvette. “I like speed”, Biden says.
The garage complex is slated to cost $1.64 billion dollars or roughly $130,000 per stall. At the insistence of congressional proponents of the Green New Deal, a minimum of 1/3 of the cost of the garage must be spent on environmentally-friendly features, such as the bike parking and green roof. The garage will be designed to be convertible to self-storage or new office space for lobbyists, although such a retrofit will cost an additional $500 million dollars. The structure will be built with recycled concrete sourced from demolished parking structures overseas. The floors inside the garage will be embedded with solar panels and will generate energy from a state-of-the-art LED lighting system.
Besides the National Parking Association, other supporters of this eco-friendly effort include National Wetlands Coalition, Friends of Eagle Mountain, The Sahara Club, The Alliance for Environment and Resources, The Abundant Wildlife Society of North America, the Global Climate Coalition, the National Wilderness Institute, the Environmental Policy Alliance of the Center for Organizational Research and Education, and the American Council on Science and Health. [citation]
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie (R) reports that Washington DC is on track to get statehood now. Adding capacity for 12,000 more cars has addressed his pressing concerns about congestion in DC.
The green roof asphalt tiles specified in the plans are a state-of-the-art washable eco-composite with green pigmentation. The Department of Defense will be selling baked goods to fund the construction of the garage. Finally, the Biden White House plans to construct a drive-through Dairy Queen that will serve free ice cream.
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This article was also fact-checked and contributed to by Mike Kwan, Lindsay Bayley, and Tony Jordan.
