Are Drive Thru Lanes a Gender Issue?

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Yesterday, in the county council work session on a developers request to permit drive thru lanes in a Transit Oriented District,Marsha McLaughlin pointed out that the Planning Board voted along gender linesin rejecting the change. Jacqueline Easley, the sole female member of the fivemember board, pointed out that drive thrus are helpful when you have three kidsin the car. She cast the only vote in support of the change.

The three women on the council seemed to empathize, thoughCalvin Ball and Greg Fox both pointed out that they were dads and therefore notunsympathetic to the challenge of dealing with three kids in the car. Gregappeared to support the Planning Boards decision.
The bottom line is that drive-through lanes, particularlyfor fast food, are bad. According to this post on the Sierra Club blog, carsidling in drive thru lanes are a big waste of energy.
“Taking the fast-food industry as an example, and takinginto account that the average McDonald's drive-through wait is 159 seconds, wecan calculate that the company's consumers burn some 7.25 million gallons ofgas each year. The figure for the entire U.S. fast-food industry? Roughly 50million gallons.”
There is also the health issue. It seems to me that gettingthose three kids out of the car and moving around is a good way to negate the impactof eating fast food.
Then again, I am a man…and a dad.