I would never steal them.

But they make great cover-ups for graffiti.

There's a Sierra Club/etc 520 meeting coming up March 24th at REI.

I think we're outlawing bikes and insisting everyone drive SUVs on 12-lane triple decker freeways ...

that scooter is the cutest thing i've ever seen. i want one!

ECB, will you post a follow-up on the slog tomorrow for those of us who can't attend tonight?

Oh, but I fixed the parking receipt problem.

The real question is, where are those 40 bikes in the "cluster fuck" going to park when they tear down the viaduct?

oh man, i agree with your sentiment entirely. it turns out it is more difficult to legally park in seattle with a scooter than with a car (in my experience). shouldn't it be easier?

there are so many nooks and crannies you should be able to put a scooter in... but you can't because you might get ticketed.

Thank you, Erica!

And that is a beautiful scoot. I'm envious.

Here is the lowdown what the main parking issues are, and some tips for how to find parking and avoid a ticket.

@3, if Erica can't make it, I will post a follow-up on my blog.

I tried 2 yrs ago for months to get Drago et al to put this on an agenda somewhere. It all stemmed from a day when a Parking Enforcement Agent of Doom thought that I was challenging her (I can't imagine having her job!) when I was just asking where I could park my scooter cheap or free and safe, because under the Viaduct she started ticketing all the scooters one day, but randomly and incosistently.

If you parked next to a pillar, she said you were blocking the crosswalk (but who can walk through a pillar???). If you parked next to the carpool cars, you were violating a "no parking any time" sign next to the cars (it's clearly meant for a CAR not to park in that space between two pillars). And on and on with her.

I can't reasonably take the bus because of my work/school/rehearsal schedule, and don't want to drive and take up a whole space all day / spew fumes / waste gas, and so if I got a scooter, I should not be penalized for trying to find a free place to park all day. And I shouldn't have to park in a car space, move it every two hours, and pay $3 each time. For those of us who can't / don't take the bus but have a reasonable alternative, we should catch a carpool/light transit break as well. I would even pay a yearly parking permit in the city if I could park in designated spots all day. College campuses can manage scooter parking and permitting - the city should be able to as well. Or just get the fuck off our backs and stop treating us like criminals.

There's been way too much emphasis placed on automobile parking OR bus, and not enough on scooter/motorcycle parking. The scooter parking space at the corner of Harvard behind the Broadway Market is the right direction for the city to go. You can fit 8 of them in on car length spot, so the city should say THANKS instead of making 8X the $ off of us.

And please don't ever let your friends become meter maids. There's no good that can come from it. Had Twin Peaks made it into a 3rd year, I don't have a doubt that's what Agent Cooper would have found in the Black Lodge.

Would the solution be more dedicated motorbike parking areas? Or perhaps some sort of paint marking that divided up regular car spots, so that if no car had taken it yet, a scooter or motorcycle could take, say, a marked-off 1/3 of it, automatically making the other 2/3 into motorbike slots as well? Which would then revert to a car slot when the last bike vacated it? Is that possible?

I do take issue with "Given that scooters are almost always more environmentally friendly", though, because they aren't -- if, as you point out, they're two-stroke. One two-stroke motor puts out as much pollution as a hundred cars.

Maybe we should have a program where, when we tear down the viaduct, we replace every fourth car/SUV parking spot with a plug-in-hybrid/motorbike parking spot.

You could stick 2 Smart Cars in the spot, or a bunch of mopeds, or 1 plug-in hybrid.

Maybe with a minimum 60 mpg requirement for the vehicles (as certified by the city via a sticker program).

@elenchos good info, thanks. great device you made. you should contract through the city to sell them -- you'd make a fortune.

@fnarf is that really true? i've looked for sources many times, and could find that two-strokes were bad, but because of their weight, they are not as bad as the average vehicle found on the road today.

Since scooters take up less room, at a minimum scooter riders shouldn't have to pay as much to park, assuming that they aren't taking an entire parking space.

New two strokes are effectively banned at this point, due to the appalling pollution. The only ones left are rapidly-aging collectors items being bid up by hipsters but being left to rust by the same fickle hipsters when they realize they require effort to maintain.

Two-strokes really are horrible, but as elenchos points out @14, sales of new two-stroke bikes is basically illegal at this point. The EPA is getting around to banning 2-strokes for ATVs and off-road motorcycles. Next target, I'm sure, are boats, jetskis and lawnmowers.

And msot of the classic bike fanatics who collect the old Vespas and Lambrettas are riding modern four-strokes for day-to-day stuff. If you ride every day, you either need a modern 4-stroke, or you need to be a mechanic with three or four classic 2-strokes in your garage--two or three of which, at any given time, are not functioning.

I did a casual search, and couldn't find a specific car-to-scooter ratio, but I did find the EPA saying that one two-stroke engine pollutes more in two hours than a car does in a year, and did some extrapolating. Whatever it is, it's horrendous. Two-stroke engines are burning oil, remember, and they also spew far more unburnt hydrocarbons than cars. Modern cars have a lot of anti-pollution gear on them (starting with catalytic converters), and are also specially tuned. Even modern SUVs and trucks emit far less poison than ordinary compacts from 20 years ago.

Will, how many plug-in hybrids are there on the road today in Seattle? Five? Ten? And how many 60-mpg cars are there on the road today in Seattle? Uh, ZERO, maybe? Hint: Smart Cars come nowhere near that figure. I know reality is discomfiting to your press-packet worldview, but I'm confident the city is more clued in than you are. Everyone is.

Rumors of the demise of the two stroke are greatly exaggerated! Aprilia produces a range of bikes with a direct injection two stroke that meets Euro 3 standards, more stringent than the EPA Tier 2 standards phasing in 2010.

Look at this sweet 500cc 2-stroke that does 96 MPG at 70 MPH and tell me the two stroke is dead.

According to online data, which Fnarf is way too lazy to even google for even though it was reported in the Seattle Times and PI just a while back, King County has a number of businesses that convert vehicles to 60 to 100 mpg versions.

As in more than three.

God you're lazy, Fnarf.

And, in case you missed it, both Japan and the EU have multiple car models that get 60 mpg or higher, some of which will be (finally) sold in the US starting with the 2009 model year.

Or you could just go to the yellow pages and look up plug-in hybrid conversions for your Toyota Prius or VW Bus and do it now.

But Fnarf is way too lazy. I sure hope someone posts "as" him on Freaky Friday.

I think it's worth mentioning that if you receive a ticket due to a stolen parking sticker, you can get the ticket revoked, as long as you use a debit/credit card to purchase it (although I'm sure the city probably doesn't make it easy, I've never had to do it, so can't say). I'm a scooter rider myself, and while I've never had a parking sticker stolen, I always make sure I use my debit card, just in case.

Fnarf and others,

Most regular riders in Seattle ride 4 strokes or new two strokes that pass EPA emissions. There aren't really that many old 2 strokes riding around. Start taking a look around when you drive. Most will be modern Vespas, Japanese, or Chinese bikes - all of which are 4 strokes or new 2 strokes that pass emissions.

The emission requirements changed in the 80s. Yes, the old two strokes are dirty. But they are the minority, at least in Seattle.

EPA statistics support the idea that modern scooters emit less pollution to the environment.
Co2 counts (from http://nlquery.epa.gov/epasearch/epasearch )

Scooters:
Aprilia Mojito 150 - 58.7 gm/km
Honda Metropolitan 33 gm/km
Genuine Scooter My Bubu 50.4 gm/km
Kymco Vitality 50 54 gm/km
Vespa GT 200 72.3 gm/km

Motorcycles:
Harley Davidson XB12Scg LIGHTNING 118.5 gm/km
Honda VTX1800R 135.4 gm/km

SUVs:
Land Rover Discovery 3 - 354 gm/km
Land Rover Range Rover - 374 gm/km
Hyundai Santa Fe - 252 gm/km
Jeep Grand Cherokee - 366 gm/km
Volkswagen Touareg - 331 gm/km
Hummer H3 - 472 gm/km

Cars:
Chrysler 300 - 262-330 gm/km depending on engine
Honda Accord - 223 gm/km
Mini Cooper - 216 gm/km
Toyota Prius - 104 gm/km

Are mopeds, having pedals to be pedal powered, the solution? Seems you could lock it up to a bike rack and say yeah, the engine is dead so I pedal it around.

erica doesn't want to have to pay for anything, evar.

i had an old honda aero scooter from 84. i think it used direct injection, and despite being a two-stroke, was pretty clean compared to other four-stroke scooters. very clean compared to the average cars from 84 or 04.

and that doesn't even consider the less amount of gas used, less road wear, less materials used for manufacture and transport, and so forth.

but i'm far from an expert, and i've heard these horror stories about two-stroke engines. most center around their use in asia. when referenced in the US, the worst culprit is often water recreational vehicles because of the pollution they leave in the water.

so i was just trying to get more information on the whole story.

This is the kind of thing that makes Seattle look absolutely ridiculous to the rest of the country. This little meeting will likely show up on the national wire services and be used to show just what a bunch of frivolous elitist lefties our residents and local officials are...

In Brooklyn, my brother solves his scooter parking problem by attaching his license plate with Velcro, and removing it when he isn't riding. I guess that would get your vehicle disappeared here?

Free two hour parking for all "green" and non sightline blocking vehicles - scooters, bikes, electrics, small ICVs, etc. - within 60 feet of intersections.

Encourage green and make it safer for all by letting pedestrians, bikers, drivers et al. see more clearly at intersections, the most dangerous places on the grid.

2 strokes vs. 4 strokes:

http://bajajusa.com/emissions.htm

There are new 2 strokes coming out that are far superior, but they have a long road to get approved in this country.

Will in Seattle, quit smoking crack. Lazy can be fixed, but stoopid is forever. 60 mpg cars won't pass crash test standards here, ever. The mileage figures will go up, but not to that level.

There's a diminishing return on mpg; upgrading a car from 20mpg to 30mpg saves exactly as much fuel as upgrading from 30mpg to 60mpg (63 ml per mile savings in each case). A policy that wishes to cut fuel consumption is best off establishing on a minimum standard per vehicle class, rather than providing some incentive to owners of uncommonly high-efficiency 60+mpg vehicles.

"60 mpg cars won't pass crash test standards here, ever"

Pedestrians can't pass crash tests either, so what exactly is your point. Part of the reason we have the problems we have is that we have this 'arms race' mentality on the road. The biggest reason why so many people who rarely go off-road are buying these gawdawful SUVs is because they need to feel 'safe' from all the other people out there who drive like idiots. Where exactly will it all end, when we're all commuting to work in civilianized Bradley Fighting Vehicles?

What we need to do is take moving violations seriously. Most collisions have other factors such as speeding, aggressive and/or impaired/distracted driving involved. The current penalties for speeding, running red lights, etc. are frankly chump change. If a speeding ticket fine started at $500, and the fine for running stop signs/lights started at $1000, with confiscation of vehicle or imprisonment if you can't/don't pay, I'll bet the streets would become safe for peds/bikes/scoots/motorcycles/60+ mpg cars overnight! People simply have to start driving with an awareness of the needs of others. If good manners doesn't bring that about, than severe penalties for automotive jackassery surely will.

Yeah, and if we jack up the prison sentences high enough nobody will touch rock cocaine either!

What, we already...? Oh, nevermind.

I cannot say how much my opinion of ECB has been raised by this post. I kid! I kid! Kind of.

Erica, is that bike out of commission because it's a vietnam/indian import? I can't quite see the badge but it looks like an imfamous Vespa 150. If so, I feel your pain, having once had one. If not, I am awestruck by your A+ paint job and curious what model it is.

Also, my first scoot was a really early Honda Elite that must have weighed 80 lbs. I feel this odd affinity with you right now...

Anyway, yes, I second the need for follow-up tomorrow, as as soon as I finish school in the spring I intend to purchase another two-wheeled, motorized form of transportation, but can't make it this evening...

Erica,
You have nailed all my concerns in one post !
I 've had my scooter since 2001 and there weren't too many of us back then.
I can't go to the meeting, so i hope somebody will slog about what happened !

nbc - the best policy does both. Give incentives and set minimums. As mileage goes up, so too the requirements for preferential parking. Why not reward the most green?

Thanks, wah @21! By the way, ECB sure has a sweet ride! And Fnarf's still a dick.

Wait, Erica drives a two-stoke?

The mind reels.

Will, you are wrong, and you're still wrong.

Your say "both Japan and the EU have multiple car models that get 60 mpg or higher" but you can't provide the names of any of them. EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE TWO, that I know of. You don't -- and you also don't know why they can't be sold in the USA (hint: it's not crash-testing).

As for your "three businesses", why don't you tell us how many conversions they've done here. Oh, that's right -- you can't, because you have NO FUCKING IDEA.

Wah @20, thanks for the update and correction. I'm all for clean modern scooters.

When I got my scooter in the early 90s it was still legal for scooters and motorcycles to park between metered car spaces. Which was generally fine, though you did risk someone knocking the scooter over when parallel parking. But then they made that illegal, and this is one of the reasons I don't ride my scooter anymore -- too damned hard to find parking. Personally, I think scooter parking should be free, period, and there should be more spots marked for them. Or some other kind of allowance for them, like allowing them to park on (un-landscaped) planting strips or something.

Once someone moved my scooter out of a street spot onto a planting strip... breaking the mirror and side panel in the process (plastic late 80s Honda Elite, and I think they probably tipped it over when parking their car.) As I was getting ready to leave a cop came by and yelled at me about how illegal it was to have my scooter there. Sigh.