Listen, guys: I’m tired of people conflating a car tab with a Vehicle License Fee. A car tab is for cars. A VLF is for “vehicles,” including two-wheeled vehicles like scooters. The distinction is not arbitrary, as new county and local fees adding up to $80 annually will apply equally to Goldy’s 2001 Nissan Altima and to my 2009 Buddy 125, a scooter which averages about 95 MPG.

Scooters consume far fewer resources than cars, in terms of fuel, carbon dioxide emissions, and required parking space. Yet motorcycle and scooter riders are paying the same amount to use less road—including parking space. Obviously, bicycles and foot traffic are more sustainable ways to get around, but scooters are superior in just about every way to cars for the city (unless you care about dying.pdf or have small children). If scooter riders are asked to contribute the same amount to city transit and roads, I think some other compensation must be offered by the city.

Personally, I’d like free street parking for my scooter, something that Seattle City Council Member Tim Burgess has suggested*. It’s ridiculous to pay the same amount to park my scooter between two Seattle drivers who can’t parallel park as a Hummer pays to take up two spots on the street.

To wit: I want free parking for my goddamn scooter. Thanks!

*Burgess totes owns a scooter. VROOOM!

51 replies on “I Want Free Parking for My Goddamn Scooter”

  4. scooters are generally exempt from emissions, being small engines, and thus are gross polluters because of it.

    Also, every point you have applies to motorcycles, and they pay the same fees.

    suck it up.

  7. parking in any neighborhood zone is free for scooters, even if cars have to pay the meter. doesn’t help downtown, but does on the hill.

  9. Quit your bitching, Pete. The City need every last bit of revenue they can get, and you’re not exempt just because you choose the most humiliating form of motorized transport.

  11. Parking between 2 cars in a non-spot is an excellent way to get your scooter knocked over when one of those cars tries to get out of their real spot. So, no complaining on Slog when that happens. K?

  13. @4, depends on whether they’re two-stroke or four-stroke. A two stroke motor cranks out more pollution than two dozen cars. I’ll support free parking for four-stroke scooters (125cc or less) in exchange for a total ban on all two-stroke anythings, including scooters, mowers, and string trimmers. Leaf blowers get the death penalty.

  14. whoa. pay to park dude. just whoa man.

    JOIN THE FUCKING GRID YOU PIECE OF SHIT SKIN-MITE.

    Or, park whereever the fuck you want. i’m cool with that too. but, then, shit happens, sometimes, i hear.

  15. @4 There are national emmissions standards for motorcycles and scooters, and some places have local standards as well (Phoenix, for example). They aren’t “gross” polluters. Plus, the number of scooters and motorcycles compared to cars is very small, and the displacement of (most) motorcycles and (all) scooters is a small fraction of (most) cars.

    A few years ago Seattle motorcyclists drew attention to the stupidity of parking rules by going downtown in a big group, and parking one motorcycle to a spot for several hours. In pay station spots, each motorcycle has to pay, even if there are 4 bikes in one spot. Seattle needs to relax its motorcycle and scooter parking standards.

    Please respond with usual vitriol and hipper-than-thou sarcasm.

  17. This debate plays out on here every few months. Same b.s. every time. A 2-stroke footprint is small but dirty. Wouldn’t free parking for motorcyles and scooters cost less than $6b for a tunnel that will never be finished?

  18. Two words. Tim Eyman. Car tabs should be based on the value or cost of the vehicle, so more expensive and larger cars – which pollute more and have bigger impact – pay more than smaller ones. But that was thrown out by Gimmie Timmy initiative.

  20. If I have to pay the same rate to park my motorcycle as I do my car, then I might as well drive. Give me free or reduced rates for my motorcycle and I’ll ride it instead. Tim Burgess has my support.

  24. good effin’ luck. Armed with knowledge about how friendly Denver and Toronto are to scooters, I asked Steve Nicholas at the City of Seattle what chance scooterists have of enjoying similar benefits (free parking): he wasn’t interested in going down that path. Now Toronto has a dickhead mayor, I don’t know about Denver, and I’m still waiting for a green scooter-friendly mayor for Seattle.

  26. Motorcycles and scooters are able to park in neighborhood zones without needing stickers in Seattle. That’s been good enough for me, and I am never short of finding spots big enough for my motorcycle. I commend you for using a scooter which takes up less space, gets better gas mileage, and does less damage to the roads. Everyone telling you to shove it can go shove it. That being said, there’s enough free parking for you if you know where to look that cars can’t get.

  28. /agree

    I don’t really mind that our family car (’04 Cavalier) will incur the extra tab fees this year. However, that we’ll have to pay the exact same fees on my Lifan Metro 50cc scooter really does rub me the wrong way.

  29. @17, a Genuine Buddy 125 is powered by a 4-stroke engine that not only meets California emissions standards, but those of Taiwan, which are even more strict for scooters and motorcycles.

    Toronto lets scooters park free. Five or six of them would fit in the marked metered spaces downtown. It’d be perfectly reasonable to charge $25 or $30 for an annual sticker that exempts scooters from feeding the kiosks. Or get some white paint and divide a couple car spaces per block for scooter parking.

    Unpaid Intern, your cause is just and the haters will soon feel the wrath of scooterists worldwide. And yeah, pretty much every member of the Seattle City Council thinks free parking for scooters is a good idea… I don’t know why they haven’t done something about it.

  32. or how about at least coming up with a different system for scooters and motorcycles than the stupid sticker? I got a ticket last year because someone simply took my pay & display sticker off my motorcycle and used it in their car (presumably at least, they could have ate it)

  33. @32:

    When you buy parking stickers, use a credit/debit card. That way, if some sleazebag swipes it, you have a record of the transaction, which, when presented to a magistrate, will get the ticket rescinded. You still have to go to traffic court, but at least you can prove you paid for parking.

    And as a former scooter rider, the idea that scooters and motorcycles should pay the same as a full-sized automobile, or worse, a gargantuan SUV, is just plain stupid. They take up less parking space, they don’t use as much gas, they pollute far less than a car, and they cause negligible wear-and-tear to the roads; hell, most can’t even use freeways.

  35. Wait. I’m supposed to not carry small children on a scooter? Because why?

    Carry a baby going 30 mph on a bicycle in traffic and everyone thinks you’re fucking Ghandi. Carry a baby 30 mph in traffic on a scooter and you’re like that lady who killed her baby on TV. Susan Mayhem or whatever. Put them in the microwave I think or drove them in a lake. You know.

    I’m just saying getting hit by a car or falling off with a motorcycle helmet and leather jacket is better than with a piece of shit bicycle helmet. Have you seen those things? Bicycle helmets are pieces of shit. And some pathetic nylon windbreaker? Are you kidding me? Spandex shorts and those little ballerina shoes prevent zero point zero zero zero percent of road rash. That’s all I’m saying.

  36. I never know whether to laugh or cry when I see that the Slog comment threads are 75% populated by conservative Republicans. Do you really have nothing else to do all day other than come visit Slog and shit on people? If that’s your big fun on a Friday, no wonder conservatives are so grouchy.

  38. This is s good point, but Seattle needs revenue. I end up paying for street parking with my scooter *at most* once a week. Shit, the city can keep the change.

    If you’ve gotten your parking sticker stolen, you can not only use your credit/debit card bill, you can also carry a Sharpie and write SCOOTER and your license plate number on the sticker as a visual deterrent. I assure you, the meter maids will catch your drift.

  39. “So mea culpa, 4-stroke scooters indeed are cleaner than 2-stroke ones, but compared to cars, they can be worse when it comes to air quality issues (they are worse per mile driven, but you tend to drive a scooter fewer miles, though even taking that into account, the difference is still big enough to matter).”

    treehugger.com

  40. @36: Difficult to get up to 30mph on a bike if you’re carrying a baby, particularly for any sustained distance. In my decade plus of daily bike commuting, I can’t recall anyone with a kid every doing more than poking along at 10mph.

    Also, if you think bike helmets are ‘pieces of shit’, I invite you to take several blows to the head from a piece of asphalt at 10mph or so. Consider carefully–do you want to take that hit bareheaded or wearing a ‘piece of shit’?

    Over the years I’ve had three head impacts while cycling and I have no doubt that my helmet helped.

  41. I don’t understand how it’s legal to put a baby in a bike cart and ride in rush hour traffic. If I had a kid, I wouldn’t put my kid at such risk… But what will happen is some guy will kill some kid someday, get strung up by the balls and the parents will go free. But then someone will hopefully ban this practice.
    As far as scooter parking, I don’t understand why it’s legal to park a dumpster in an alley but not a scooter or motorcycle or anything that is private property. I mean, what’s the difference?
    This is a good reason to vote no in November. Who should pay for the upkeep of the roads? Metro. Show me a bus route and I’ll show you a road that has been destroyed by those overweight buses.
    But if our “leaders” showed some initiative and did some good planning, then maybe I would.
    This city could be a world class bike city if the idiots that design the bike routes weren’t all about making sure that you see them ride rather than making sure that the routes are safe.

  44. @41

    I see them going over 30mph southbound on 20th in Ballard, to cite one example. I saw one two days ago. I’ll see more tomorrow or the day after. A bicyclist was killed there on 20th flying down that hill on 20th not a year and a half ago, by the way. He was probably going close to 40mph. They sued the driver, naturally. Because where oh where could the real blame lie?

    Have you spent your “decade plus” of bike riding within a 2 block radius of Capitol Hill or something? Are you counting your “decade plus” of experience starting from when you got a KMart Huffy bike with training wheels? Should that really count? I think five minutes sitting at the Java Bean or Besalu Bakery watching bikes zip down the hill would be a better education for you than your “decade plus” of wanking your pud and talking to yourself.

    Compared to a motorcycle helmet, bike helmets are shit, shit, shit. They don’t even protect your face.

    You’re a moron. But I don’t expect you to understand that.

  45. @45: How many motorcyclists actually wear helmets that protect their faces? Most of the time I see them wearing the minimum they can legally get away with, or — in the case of states with no helmet law — no helmet at all. I remember one guy I knew who had a bike getting teased relentlessly by other riders for wearing a full-face helmet. It just isn’t macho enough, apparently.

  46. @45: No, I’m 42 years old. My Seattle ‘decade’ of bicycle commuting has been in Ballard, Greenwood and Fremont. I’ve been riding around ten miles a day for that period through all seasons.

    And yes, while a single rider can exceed 30mph on the downhill avenues such as 8th and 24th, I’ve never seen someone with a baby in tow (or on the bike) do that, and that was the example I was discussing. Could they do it? Sure, but even the majority of single riders don’t do so–I coast behind them five days a week and my experience is that most people don’t. You have to put some effort in to break 30mph, and yes, I have a speedometer on my bike, so I really do know how fast I’m going.

  48. In RE:13, can someone explain leaf blowers to me? I just don’t get where they make sense. A rake or broom does a far better job. Sure, they require a little more sweat equity, but they’re faster and get the job done in one pass instead of having to blow shit this way and that way and then back again until it’s where you want it. And then rake the mulch you blew all over the place back into the flower bed. I can’t get my brain around it…

  49. I don’t own a scooter but smaller/no fees for smaller transport that uses less resources sounds sensible. Bikes and low-resource using and low-polluting vehicles should be encouraged.

  50. yeah, yeah, and you know what I want? A sign on every goddamn block that says, “this parking space for small, beat-up blue 2-door Hondas ONLY.” But I’m not gonna get it. But you get signs all over the fucking place that say “Parking for motorcycles [and scooters] Only”. I can search three hours and not find a parking space for my car while passing a mile’s worth of unused parking areas reserved for motorcycles that don’t seem to exist.

    You already get privileges that car owners do not get. stfu.

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