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Motorcycle & scooter parking needed in our region

July 15, 2010 Environment, Midtown, Parking, Scooters 10 Comments

Before my 2008 stroke I got around on a 49cc Honda Metropolitan scooter.Â Because of the small displacement engine it did not need to be licensed by the Missouri (some states require registering all scooters regardless of engine size).Â I’d park in out of the way places but at times I’d get notes from officers suggesting I park in a metered parking spot.Â My scooter was tiny and would be lost in a space.

scooter at parking meter

ABOVE: Scooter at parking meter, wasting space

Recently I noticed a much larger scooter parked at a meter on Lindell Blvd near Grand Ave. What I don’t know is if the space was empty when the scooter was parked or if the owner slipped in front of a car that left before I took the photo.Â Either way you can see the ridiculousness of having fixed-length parking – the one-size-fits-all formula that wastes lots of space.

In high demand areas we need to have motorcycle & scooter parking. In the space of one car you can fit in parking for 3-6 motorcycles/scooters.Â For payment you use pay-per-space machines:

ABOVE: Motorcycle parking, San Francisco 2/2004

ABOVE: Motorcycle parking, San Francisco 2/2004

You pay for the number for the slot you park in. Regular meters can also be used where you have 2-3 spaces.Â By creating the spaces perpendicular to the curb line you can fit in many motorcycles & scooters.Â Motorists will be less frustrated by not having a scooter taking a full space.Â Riders will be happy having a designated space for their compact tw0-wheeled vehicles. The city will collect additional revenue.

- Steve Patterson

Chris

I really like the parking meters that print out a stub you can place on your windshield, but in the case of a motorcycle, wouldn't it be really easy to steal the ticket off a motorcycle?

http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson

That is why motorcycle parking is pay-per-space rather than pay-n-display.

JZ71

From Denver: “Motorcycle Parking – Multiple motorcycles may park at an on-street meter, as long as they do not obstruct traffic and the meter is paid accordingly. Should the meter expire, all motorcycles are subject to tickets and/or fines.” Obviously, this requires either friends and/or cooperation among strangers (last one in needs to top off the meter), but should be easy to implement here. When it comes to private lots and garages, you're working against greed – why let smaller vehicles share when you can get a full fee from each one? Actually, what ticks me off a lot more are larger vehicles (full-size vans and SUV's and, especially, crew-cab pickup trucks) that don't fit in one space and/or idiots that don't know how to park correctly (between any painted lines and front [or rear] bumper lined up with the meter post).

http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson

In Clayton they told me one vehicle per space, no matter how many will fit.

http://ericrogers.org/ Eric Rogers

Encouraging scooter and motorcycle use is a very bad idea from an air quality perspective, as they are incredibly more polluting than cars or trucks. Driving a motorcycle 10 miles emits as much pollution as driving a car 800 miles.

I understand the sentiment of encouraging and facilitating people's use of non-automobile travel, but scooters and motorcycles are not the way to go.

http://urbanreviewstl.com/ Steve Patterson

A decade ago you would have been correct but emissions rules no longer make this the case. I know I drove less and stayed closer to home when the only vehicle I had was a scooter.

aaronlevi

unfortunately, when it comes to my '78 harley shovelhead, mr. rogers is correct. but it's a beautiful bike and i just can't bring myself to give it up. my wife's early 2000's 2-stroke Yamaha Vino isn't much better. but at least my car is a hybrid, thats like a carbon offset, right?

Todd

To be honest, St. Louis has such plentiful parking (especially compared to SF) that I'm not really sure this is an issue. If a small scooter takes up 1/3 of a parking space, what's the big deal? There will likely be plenty of other free parking spaces around nearby. Frankly, I wish this were a problem for STL, since it would imply that we had a much higher population density than we do…
William Kruse

Parking a motorcycle is a “damned if you do, damned if you don't” situation. When I owned one, people would be upset if I took up a whole space for just my bike. If I parked on the sidewalk or any other spot that wasn't a “car space”, then people were upset because they thought I was parking illegally. Impossible to please everyone.
http://www.leddrivinglights.net/led-driving-lights-motorcycle/ Led driving lights motorcycle

In high demand areas we need to have motorcycle & scooter parking. In the space of one car you can fit in parking for 3-6 motorcycles/scooters.

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