Results tagged “scooters”

Hot Town, Scooter in the City

It's said Seattle is one of the scooter-friendliest cities in the U.S. Scooter breeding grounds demand a mix of ecological concern, frustratingly limited parking, and dare-to-be-different hipster mentality--all of which our city has in abundance. A quick look down any urban street, and your view is speckled with Vespas, Hondas, and motorbikes galore. You probably notice them a lot as pedestrian or a four-wheel driver. You'll notice them way more if you join the club.

It figures that on the same day the Dow sank below 10,000--its worst decline since...uh...last week--we'd also read that gas scooters and motorcycles are worse polluters than cars and SUVs. Thanks, Alan Durning! Sure, they're gas-sippers, but since you can't fit emissions equipment on the tiny little suckers, they're essentially like driving around a high-mpg leaf-blower. The EPA says driving some motorcycles 10 miles is as bad emissions-wise as driving a car 850 miles. We're going back to bed.

Is there some widespread problem about town of which we're unaware, where motorists are indiscriminately moving scooters out of the way to park their cars? Maybe because we don't own a scooter, but we haven't heard about a city-wide uproar about this. Nonetheless, a fine is being discussed to put an end to this travesty.

We spend a lot of time at the Seattlest newsroom talking about the problems bicycle riders in this city have and how the city should make it easier for us since we reduce congestion and emissions at the same time. Now we realize we’ve been ignoring the good our our two-wheeled motorized brethren (and sistern) on scooters.

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