Nevius in the lead for Pangloss award

The Chronicle's C.W. Nevius is important in San Francisco only because he writes about local issues. 

His columns supporting Mayor Newsom's initiatives on homelessness performed a public service at the time, since Newsom's "progressive" political opposition was badly botching the homeless issue.

But I eventually realized that Nevius invariably supports important City Hall projects. He doesn't even pretend to do the speaking-truth-to-power thing.

Nevius's column today (Arena traffic will help S.F. change its ways) is so dumb he's a heavy favorite to win my Dr. Pangloss award for the sappiest bit of unjustified optimism of the year (John King is a two-time winner: here and here. Gabriel Metcalf won last year when he channeled Pangloss with this prize-winner.)

Nevius lists all the reasons that parking and traffic in the southern part of the city are bad, will be getting worse, and why that is a Good Thing:

Traffic is only going to get worse. And that is a good thing...But the point remains, as the southern neighborhoods develop, driving---and parking---will become increasingly difficult. It already is, and the Warriors' arena is years away. I'll say it again; That's a good thing.

Why is that a Good Thing? Because it will force people to give up driving cars and, well, do something else:

We are going to leave our cars when driving becomes such a pain that other forms of transportation are superior.

He mentions Uber and Lyft, but if they were so "superior" everybody would already be using them. And he notes BART is already at capacity. Muni of course doesn't even get a mention. In any event, what are all the out-of-town Giants and Warriors fans supposed to do?

Michelle Goldberg recently wrote about how this approach works when applied to politics: it's called things-have-to-get-worse-before-they-get-better, a strategy by German progressives that led to Hitler. 

Here in Progressive Land that approach on traffic will only result in more gridlock in that part of the city. (The Masonic Avenue bike project will do the same in this part of town.)

Before this only the bike crackpots advocated making traffic worse as a deliberate city policy, like Leah Shahum and Dave Snyder, because, you understand, everyone should give up those wicked motor vehicles and ride bikes. 

Apparently even Nevius isn't willing to be that dumb.