Bikers served $40 notice to clear out of Pearl Alley
The Dispatch wrote
Bikers served $40 notice to clear out of Pearl Alley
Friday, May 30, 2008
BY BOBBY PIERCE
Motorcyclists and scooter riders say the tickets they found on their bikes Wednesday afternoon mean they’ve lost their parking haven Downtown. But Columbus officials say they’re trying to find ways to accommodate the smaller vehicles.
The city is considering scooter and motorcycle parking in Pearl Alley, on Gay Street and near Columbus City Center, said Mike Brown, a spokesman for Mayor Michael B. Coleman.
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Related Tags: downtown • gay street • motorcycles • parking • pearl alley • scooter parking • Scooters • transportation
May 30th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Wow, a pro- cycle article, Nice!
also, thanks for the heads-up, I didn’t know they were starting to ticket. And I’m happy they are just ticketing instead of towing.
May 30th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Yeah, it’s a shame that these folks had to get ticketed instead of issued a warning, but hopefully the stir will get the ball rolling faster on those dedicated parking locations for two-wheeled vehicles.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
This is understandable, yet I feel like maybe they should find a solution before yanking out the rug.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
You know, all the colleges here in town usually set out a space (usually the dead spaces where cars can’t park) in one or more of their garages for motorcycles. Wouldn’t be hard at city center and charge x/month x/year for a sticker. One of the private lots or garages could probably do pretty good business this way.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
A warning would have been nice but I can understand if it’s become an issue. There are increasing number of bikers out there. Share the road, AND the parking spots! 8)
If you think about it, one ticket isn’t too bad if you’ve been parking there for a few months.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I think perhaps city officials don’t realize that motorcycles and scooters are actually trying to be sensible and accommodating by parking in alleyways and on sidewalks. If everyone who rode bikes used an entire metered parking space just for their tiny-ass bike, that would be the perfectly legal option, though enormously inconvenient. That would be ridiculous. So ridiculous city council might just notice it if perhaps, 50-100 or so motorbikes did so on a weekday in mid-june.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
they try it, it’s called ride to work day, but no one seems to take part in it in columbus.
May 30th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
http://www.ridetowork.org/
May 30th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
What about the pedestrians?
May 30th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I use the bike racks occasionally and I’ve had a couple of cops try to ticket me for it over the years. This is nothing entirely new, although the alleys used to be understood to be mostly fair game.
the secret seems to be that some cops care and some do not. I have seen many officers look at my bike chained to a rack (always placed not to block the rack for other bikes) and just walk away. My system was to keep an eye out and if you see a meter maid/dude lookin at your plate go talk to them and move it before the ticket. Most of them have been very nice about it.
There is kind of an understanding that if a bike is in a metered space, other bikes are invited. It’s polite to chip in on the meter. In a high traffic area that can mean one space can end up being a ‘cycle space just by default as usually 3-4 bikes (or 4-6 scooters) can share a space. I can easily picture that happening on gay st.
May 30th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I can usually scoot my dumper truck between two parked cars. I’ll add some coin to the meter if it’s before 6 PM.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I’d like to see a metered street parking spot or two converted to metered 2-wheeler space. Could fit several bike/scooter spots into each car spot.
Would be even cooler to allow longer parking for two-wheeled vehicles to encourage riding them. Most of those Gay Street meters are limited to 30 minutes, an hour, or two hours. Would be cool if motorcycles/scooters could pop money into the meter at a reduced rate and have 10-hour parking.
The best way to encourage more fuel-efficient behavior is with people’s wallets.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
What about the pedestrians?
I don’t know how many bikes are in this alley, but I’ve yet to see an alley so filled with bikes, or with riders so aggressive that there was any possibility of danger in Columbus. I’ve chained my bike up on the curb for the last eight years, always respectful of handicap ramps, doorways, walkways, etc.. and I’ve only received one ticket. I don’t think that bikes in alleyways pose any obstacle to the pedestrians. I think that the City of Columbus is sluggish to respond to an obvious need for service and instead individual agencies are responding to that need with penaltie$.
Support Motorcycle Parking. please.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
If you notice I did just that. I mentioned one possible solution. If you read the article, this action was prompted by someone who was careless in their parking and blocked access to the door way.
June 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am
NOOO!!!! That is my 100% free downtown parking spot directly next to where I work. :-( Who had the big bike with the sidecar?
I think this is a case where things go a little too far. Bike with side car who parked in front of a door= not good…. everyone else is fine.
Just to let everyone know we were all parking on a side unusable by pedestrians or cars around a dumpster…. I’m forming a scooter lobbyist group to retain young professionals. (”young professional” being the distractive part..)
Riding the bus in the winter is enough, I need to have my scooter summers.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
Why am I not surprized a Harley Davidson ignited the fuse on the fiasco?
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
Okay, what’s the game plan though. Do we wait a week and start parking there again?
Or have we found alternative digs?
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 am
An amusing follow up to this issue:
yesterday afternoon my lovely wife and I went to Mac’s for 1/2 price meat pies and a scotch egg followed by a trip to Jeni’s across the street. I was parked in one of the metered parking spaces in the lot next to the building, totally legal (for a change).
Upon return to my Steel Sled-dog, I found a note written in the “bubble” style of young feminine handwriting I know VERY well from grading hundreds of undergraduate geology assignments saying “PLZ DO NOT PARK IN CAR SPACES!!!”
LOL!
Not the first time i’ve gotten crap from some car-driving nimrod for following my legal parking requirements. Got me thinking no matter where I go i’m going to either piss off some car driver who can’t find a space or some cop who is going to write me a ticket. The thought simply makes me think “Sick sad world” and laugh. I’ve heard tales of bikes being wrecked by irrate car-folk for daring to take a space, though.
Yep. It would really be great to have some cycle parking around town where we would be free from hassle by THE MAN
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
BOOOO HISSS. I don’t know why people need to unnecessarily stir up trouble. I’ve parked my scooter there a few times and see scooters and bikes parked there all the time. They are never in the way of anything and people walk on the other side of the alley. Are they going to start handing out jaywalking tickets now too?
Whatever happened to that Columbus Green city initiative? This kind of stuff seems to pointing the city the wrong direction.
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Very sad to see this. I have parked my scooter in Pearl Alley a couple of times per month for 2+ years. I have never seen any parking done which impeded the pedestrian access. As was pointed out, the area being used is not a pedestrian-used zone. It is between a bike rack and a dumpster.
The issues:
#1 Timing. The city is working on a solution, but felt compelled to crack down before finding or offering a solution. That’s backwards. It is not an emergency that required immediate action.
#2 The Basis for the crackdown. 1 vehicle, larger than all the other (as it had a side-car), parks so that it blocks access to a door. The problem is one of respecting door access, or vehicle size, not a scooter parking vs. pedestrian movement. If it had been a delivery truck, would they have ticketed the scooters/cycles nearby? Or if a delivery truck blocked a doorway, would the police then ticket every UPS/Fedex/etc. truck that stops on a road or alley (which is usually illegal) but doesn’t impede traffic? Overreaction.
#3 Bad policy. A. Every scooter or motorcycle in an alley is one more customer for the local businesses which does not require its own full-sized parking spot. Even if the rider is not patronizing a particular business, it cuts down on car-parking competition, allowing other customers to park nearby. B. It helps promote downtown living and greener living via less parking demand and better gas mileage. C. The meter option ignores the problem of theft. Scooters are not very heavy and can be picked up and thrown in a van. Therefore, most folks choose to lock them or park them within eye-sight in front of a store. Meters are often too far on the curb to lock to, or if you use a long lock, they can simply be lifted over the meter.
#4 The multiple-scoot/cycle at 1 meter option. This one is interesting, as it seems very reasonable. Yet a few years back motorcycles sharing 1 metered spot were all ticketed at Comfest. Aparently there is a law prohibiting multiple vehicles from being parked at 1 meter. So they all received tickets (ignoring that maybe 1 cycle parked legally and the others jumped in on the spot). So just as parking in the alley is illegal but does little or no harm, so is the multiple at 1 meter option. Just one complaint away from having tickets issued.
I do hope an “official” solution is reached. However, it appears an imaginary problem. Given the patio seating, sandwich-signs, newspaper racks, etc. which line our urban sidwalks & alleys (all good things), our city could probably accomodate 50 scooters per block on the sidewalks/alleys without significant impact on pedestrian movement.
Finally, I would like to say “thanks” to all the police and meter-reading folks who have given us a pass over the past few years.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
that is quite hilarious!
i have seen bikes of various kinds parked in Pearl every time i go down there for lunch, and i always assumed that it was cool with the city. it’s much better than having them take every space on Gay. there are cars parked there very often as well. i hope those were also ticketed. that seems a perfect space for some reserved bike parking to me. if they need to make some money off of it require a sticker or put in meters for 10-20 spaces. easy to fit in that area.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Motorcyclist and Scooterist friends of mine, living in New York City are often confronted with this situation. Their solution: Velcro license plates. They park in alleys or on the sidewalk, chain up, remove the plate and go about their business. In their experience, most meter-maids are not schooled enough to locate the VIN plate and therefor write a ticket and are unwilling to have the bike towed, thus the NYC kids park without being ticketed. Unfortunately, this only heightens the illegality of dealing with -as Emar said it best- a non-existent problem.
July 18th is ride to work day, I would love for the City of Columbus to put some meat behind their support for this day.
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Seems like two wheels in general gets a lot of harassment from the car culture in general. Sucks to fly in the face of the status quo sometimes. :D
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:47 am
?
:D
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Here’s what I wrote in my blog about this:
As with the biker noted in the article I too knew I was living on borrowed time parking in the alley. I’m not going to argue the merit of being ticketed but I find it interesting that the construction workers who park their personal vehicles so tight sometimes you can’t squeeze between them in Pearl Alley, (abutting the State Office Tower - nice safety eh?), were NOT ticketed. I’m sure I know which door was blocked and I had concerns about that as well; with the exception of the door being blocked however there was zero interruption of pedestrian travel. The motorbikes are all lined up against the wall, bookended by the several dumpsters that line Pearl Alley.
Now I normally bicycle commute so this isn’t a huge deal for me but I agree that it was handled poorly and that the city has taken a step backwards in terms of making it desirable and welcoming to work downtown. If the public safety enforcer is serious about enforcing the parking based on the signs then NBC4’s contractor’s should owe one hell of a bill to the city. If the city sees (and they should) how beneficial it is to have motorbikes instead of cars, or worse trucks, driving downtown then they should do what other cities have done and make arrangements that are in line with the greatly reduced cost to infrastructure and time loss normally associated with larger vehicles.
************
Something to be clear about is that, in this case at least, it wasn’t CPD who wrote these tickets. I’ve talked with them and they could generally care less about us parking there. Unfortunately one incident is all it takes to spoil a good thing and that’s exactly what happened here.