If you think future planners are including two-wheeled vehicles in their plans, you are not paying attention. They are slowly working to eliminate every advantage motorcycles and scooters have in light of what everyone in transportation knows will be the next step: self-driving cars. Between our hooligan ways and our marginal contribution to traffic, emissions, and general usefulness, we’re about as popular as cops and as expected to survive into the next generation as dinosaurs.
5 comments:
Come down where it's warmer... here in MD, motorcycles are getting less and less common but scooters are EXPLODING in popularity. There's more on the streets every summer.
What's the reason for the new signs? Are they posted by the city, county or state? I park my bike free at my federal work site, since the US Gov't considers bikes green. If these are legal signs, maybe the AMA should be notified to see if they can help.
A few years ago, I wrote another rant about the urban parking game (http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2009/08/getting-parked-and-my-opinion.html). Like everything in the USofA, it's about money. If I thought the AMA did a single useful thing, I'd be on them for this issue. I'm unconvinced it's legal in government-owned parking lots and suspect it's illegal in privately owned lots. We haven't been a nation of laws since the 1980's, so being illegal won't slow up many bureaucrats.
Short of a boycott and political action, I don't see it getting any better. The clowns who make the lot gates claim they don't have the technology to "detect" a motorcycle under the gate. Obviously, that's either bullshit or they are seriously incompetent (or both).
In a small bit of good news, I was in Kingston, NY, the other day looking for a non-metered parking spot near the waterfront and I was pleasantly surprised to see a fair number of convenient "Motorcycles Only" spaces with no meters. In my town I've noticed that for some reason the town has left a significant number of odd-sized and shaped parking spaces lined off in a big local parking lot, and motorcycles seem to be using these to good advantage, though there is no signage saying what you can and can't do in them. Knowing the intelligence of our local officialdumb I wouldn't be surprised if they start ticketing these cycles for some obscure code violation like "no parking in spaces that aren't designated as parking spaces" or some such.
In Minnesota, all we can be is jealous. That is very cool, though.
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