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Hoboken Scooter & Motorcycle parking
24
November
11/24/2009:
What’s the deal with motorized bikes?
Hoboken411 has received many emails from various residents wondering about scooters and motorcycles in town. While I certainly don’t have a problem with them, many have complained about how they take up the same room as a regular parking spot, are parked illegally, or don’t have any kind of visible parking permit.
While Hoboken City Code doesn’t have specific wording about scooters or motorcycles and parking permits – it does say that all “motor vehicles” require parking permits, and so on. And since scooters and motorcycles are licensed vehicles, one would assume they fall under that code.
What about permits? Or special parking zones?
I thought about how permits would be handled for bikes like these – because in order to adhere it to the wind-screen or elsewhere visibly on the bike, they’d immediately be susceptible to theft. So where would one stick it? In a storage compartment? That’d be easily picked up by the RFID scanners the HPU uses to verify permit possession. Then again, we all know the HPU still boots cars with stickers in plain sight, so it’s essentially a moot point.
What about special parking zones on each street just for scooters and motorcycles? Perhaps a spot about 1/2 or 2/3rd’s the size of a standard spot – make it “motorcycle and scooter parking only,” with lines painted appropriately. Heck, you could even put them nearer to intersections, since they don’t block the view (as much as giant SUV’s, etc.)
Again, I have no issue with our two-wheeled cousins, but some residents do – so what changes (if any) would you make?
November 24th 2009 - 08:43:25 |
According to the HPU, everyone with a motorcycle needs to have a valid permit, but it doesn’t have to be displayed on the bike, especially since some (like mine) don’t have a windshield. Plus, stickers on paint aren’t always a good idea.
HPU told me just to hang onto the permit, and that they’d run the license plate to ensure there was a valid permit associated with the bike.
In most instances, motorcycles take up much less space than regular vehicles. However, permitted motorcycles should be able to take up a full spot if they want since the permit costs the same as for a car.
Personally, I think bikes should park close to perpendicular to the curb and be charged less for the permit.
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November 24th 2009 - 08:59:57 |
I have noticed motorcycles with tickets for not moving on street sweeping days.
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November 24th 2009 - 09:33:12 |
It would figure that people in this town would be complaining about motorcycles and scooters taking up space.
I think KB hit the point – they should park perpendicular and be charged less. They take up less space and should be encouraged in urban towns, not discouraged. I think SUVs or cars that exceed a certain length should be charged slightly more for a permit as well.
I kinda like the idea for some dedicated spots for motorcycles on each street. Not sure if the volume is great enough to do that, and most people store them for the winter months, but it’s a good idea to have a few spots in town.
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November 24th 2009 - 09:39:19 |
in various parts of the world many people use scooter and mopeds as their daily means of transportations. There are many advantages, one of them being more “green”, to operating a scooter vs. a regular car, but only in Hoboken would the residents oppose to something the rest of the world, Asia, Europe, have been using for decades.
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November 24th 2009 - 11:33:09 |
I for one have always thought that vehicular parking permits should be on a sliding fee scale based on the length of the vehicle. Plenty of SUVs in Hoboken that never have more than one or two people in them (oddly, usually on a cell phone).
There are a nice handful of “hurray for me and the h*ll with you” persons who use a motorcycle or scooter parked parallel to the curb centered between two cars 20 feet apart to hold a spot for when they get back with their car. They then move the bike perpendicular to the curb at one or the other end of the twenty foot span and take the ensuing car spot. Yes, motorcycle permits should be at a discount compared to vehicles, but if the parking authority sees a bike parked parallel to the curb like this they should just impound it. It’s really rude.
If the parking authority really wanted a windfall, start enforcing no talking on a handheld while driving regulations.
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November 24th 2009 - 11:39:17 |
I don’t really think that the majority of Hobokener are against motorcycles / scooters per se, but the way mainstream media works, the few bad apples get 90% of the ink.
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November 24th 2009 - 16:39:17 |
Not sure how it works in Hoboken but in some places like Boston, where I live, motorcycles and scooters are *required* to occupy a full space and can be ticketed or towed for doubling/tripling up within a single space. We are trying to get the city to change this, but nothing happens quickly in a municipal bureaucracy.
They get tangled up in questions like how much should 2-wheel vehicles be charged, which of the 5 vehicles in a spot should be ticketed if the meter runs out, where to put a sticker on a scooter if they institute a yearly permit arrangement, etc.
The good part of the story is that the traffic commissioner seems interested in helping, so it might actually happen next year.
Jon
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