Motorcycle Parking on Sidewalk
Last week I posted about buying a small 49cc Honda Metropolitan scooter a decade ago. Like a bicycle, it wasn’t required to be registered as a vehicle, often overlooked, and could be easily stolen. As a result, I’d park it on the sidewalk -locked to something if I couldn’t watch it. But I also see very large motorcycles on sidewalks
Really?
I’m at a loss for why this is parked here, maybe no on-street parking spaces were free? I’m open to hearing the reasons why registered motorcycles/scooters should be allowed to park on sidewalks.
— Steve Patterson
Forget parking, sometimes I *ride* my scooter on the sidewalk!
Because they’re “special”, just like scooter riders . . .
A registered vehicle weighing nearly a 1,000 pounds is very different than an unregistered (moped per Missouri law) weighing less than 200 pounds. Still, there are large scooters that are quite large.
I think the difference is 49cc and under be treated like bicycles — anything larger like vehicles. But we should also provide on-street motorcycle parking.
I ride a 49cc scooter. It comes in very handy when navigating around street barricades and “Schoemehl pots”! Try that on a Harley! My scooter goes pretty much anywhere – except on the interstates.
And I think anything with an internal combustion engine needs to stay off of the sidewalk . . . the reason both scooters and motorcycles want to park on the sidewalk is they don’t want to risk getting hit by larger vehicles, thus they want to be viewed as “special”, no different than running loud pipes (and getting away with it). The only question is where do you draw the line? In many parts of europe, parking vehicles, of all types, on the sidewalk, is completely acceptable – it all depends on local custom, local laws and local enforcement: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Moscow,_Kozitsky_Lane.jpg
So an electric motor scooter or motorcycle is fine? No internal combustion engine… http://electric-bikes.com/motor/index.html
Personally, I’d be good limiting ANYTHING with wheels – bikes, skateboards, Segways, roller blades, scooters, hand trucks and pedal pubs – but I’m also a realist. You pretty much gotta let wheel chairs and baby strollers use the sidewalk, so it gets back to some very arbitrary line – horsepower? width? length? speed? weight? real (versus perceived) “need”? And once you have the “line”, then you need consistent, effective enforcement, which seems to be a pretty low priority in the city. (Many cities would’ve towed an illegally parked vehicle, like that motorcycle!)