Found at: http://www.nh-scooters.com/article/articleprint/42/-1/1/
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Scooter commuters beat the parking crunch
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Top level
Scoot Culture
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Author: N/A
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Publishing date: 03.03.2003 22:47
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By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY
PELHAM, N.Y. — As the 5:36 from Grand Central pulls into the train station here, commuters from New York City pour off the evening train and march through the parking lot to their cars. They are parked in spaces they've waited years to get and pay $420 annually to keep.
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By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
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Not Clark Anderson. His motor scooter is chained to a railing by the platform. In the time it takes to walk to a car, he has unlocked his purple Yamaha scooter, hopped on and peeled out of the lot.
"I will never get a parking spot in my natural life. There's a waiting list, but somebody has to die," says Anderson, an investment banker who has been commuting from Pelham for eight years. Anderson became a "scooter commuter" three years ago when he moved to a house beyond walking distance to the station.
In suburbs where the waiting list for a parking space at the train station is years long, commuters have figured out an alternative: Drive a motor scooter and park it in the bike rack.
"I think we need to get another rack. I'm definitely seeing more of them," says Karen Miller, head of the parking department in New Canaan, Conn. The wait for a $324 annual parking permit there is as long as four years.
In suburban towns outside New York City — Pelham, New Canaan and Summit, N.J. — scooters are turning up at train stations more frequently. The numbers aren't big, maybe a dozen scooters in Pelham on a summer day, but they are growing.
Unlike motorcycles, motor scooters have a gap between the seat and the handlebars, so riders don't have to throw a leg over the seat to get on. Scooters, which are smaller and lighter than most motorcycles, also have conveniences like a hook under the seat for a briefcase.
"It's definitely something that's happening," says Casey Earls, managing editor of San Francisco-based Scoot! Quarterly. "We're seeing tons of business people on scooters, because it's so much cheaper to scoot downtown than to drive your SUV."
Mass transit agencies, faced with a severe shortage of parking spots, are hoping this phenomenon grows into a trend.
"We see this as something we'd like to help promote," says Jim Redeker, assistant executive director of New Jersey Transit. Like other commuter transit agencies, New Jersey's bus and rail service has a major parking crunch and is planning to add 7,000 spaces to the agency's existing 87,000 spots over the next two years. Commuting by scooter "is a great way to help everybody out, us and them, in the interim," Redeker says.
On the train line that serves Pelham, 10 stations have waiting lists of 100 people or more wanting parking spaces, says Dan Brucker, spokesman for the Metro-North commuter railroad. Metro-North installed the railings used to chain scooters and bikes when it took over the station last year. "Why use up six parking spaces for six scooters?" Brucker says.
In the Washington, D.C., suburbs, some Metro subway stations have waiting lists with 400 names for reserved parking. The Metro system, which includes the Virginia and Maryland suburbs around the nation's capital, has a parking expansion program underway. Parking spaces fill up by 7 a.m. at the first-come, first-served lots. "People start showing up as early as 5 a.m., and wait and sleep in their car," Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel says.
In the area surrounding San Francisco, the BART commuter rail system has just begun to offer reserved parking for $63 a month. Several stations already have waiting lists, spokesman Mike Healy says. The unreserved, free parking is "at a premium. Everything is filled by 7:30 a.m."
In Silicon Valley, Vespas became the "hip young thing to be riding," editor Earls says. "That certainly accounted for (the growth of scooters) on this side of the country. And economics and parking."
Lauren Sandstrom got a blue Vespa scooter when she lost her parking space in the commuter lot in New Canaan. "Initially I thought it was crazy, but it's just the best part of my commute," she says. "Everyone thought I was nuts to do it, but now, of course, every summer there are more and more Vespas at the train station."
Transit agencies have long provided bicycle racks. Washington's Metro system even has bike racks on its buses. But scooters allow commuters to haul their laptops easily, wear skirts and not arrive at the train in a lather.
"I started with a bicycle, but I got tired," says Tony Chirles, who rides a Honda Elite to the Pelham station since he lost his $90-a-month space in a church parking lot.
Scooters cost $2,000 to $4,000. Some states don't require scooter riders to have a motorcycle license. "I use one gallon of gas every six weeks," Anderson says. Like motorcycles, however, scooters are not as safe as cars. Some commuters put their scooters in the garage for the winter. Even those who ride year-round usually find another way to the station in snow or ice.
The number of scooter commuters also is growing because scooter ownership is way up. Motor scooter sales nationwide grew to 50,000 last year from 25,000 in 1999, according to the Motorcycle Information Council. That increase was fueled by the reintroduction to the U.S. market of the Vespa and other Italian scooters. About 10,000 Vespas have been sold in the United States since the brand returned in January 2001.
"The initial group of buyers was toy lovers, people of higher net worth that remembered them as kids and wanted to add one to their garage," says Mike Cunningham, director of business development for Piaggio USA, which makes Vespas. But now, "we see another segment that is buying them as commuters."
That includes Paul Pisani, a Pelham commuter who's been on the waiting list for a parking space for eight years. He tried walking the two miles from his house to the train. And he rode in taxicab carpools. But both added a half-hour to the trip. After racking up $400 in parking fines in a month, he bought a silver Vespa.
A former Harley-Davidson rider, Pisani sometimes takes his Vespa for a spin on weekends, he says. But "99.9% of the time, it's sitting at the train station."
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