As Vespa Popularity Rises, City May Try To Make Vroom

With subway fare hikes looming and Manhattan traffic often at a standstill, New Yorkers looking for faster, cheaper, and greener commutes are opting for motor scooters in record numbers. Thousands of new two-wheelers are weaving their way through lanes of stopped cars, and sales at Vespa SoHo, already up by more than 60% last year, are climbing even higher.

As Mayor Bloomberg pushes a proposal to solve what he is billing as a crippling congestion problem in Manhattan, the city is showing a new willingness to create some parking perks for scooter riders.

New leadership at the city's Department of Transportation, put in place since Janette Sadik-Khan became commissioner in April, is for the first time considering parking discounts for motor scooters in municipal lots, the deputy commissioner for traffic, Michael Primeggia, told The New York Sun through a spokeswoman.

While no official policies have been implemented as yet, the city's more open stance is a departure from its longstanding policy of holding two-wheelers to the same parking and traffic rules as four-wheel vehicles five times their size.

"Scooters are a way of linking the city, where there are no transit links, with very little energy spent," a former transportation commissioner, Samuel Schwartz (the Daily News's "Gridlock Sam"), told The New York Sun. More commuters switched to scooters in London after the city offered designated parking for two-wheelers, Mr. Schwartz said.

In London, which in 2003 instituted a tax on cars entering the city center, scooters are also exempt from the more than $15 fee motorists pay to drive during peak hours.

While the current iteration of Mr. Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal would charge scooters the same $8 fee it levies on every other vehicle entering Manhattan south of 86th Street during peak hours, many expect that would change if — and it is a big if — the plan were passed.

"The charging system in London has gotten more sophisticated as it's gone on," the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, Paul Steely White, said.

If the measure was approved in New York, the city could also offer incentives for fuel-efficient vehicles in the form of discounts, transportation experts said.

Many New Yorkers, however, are coming around to scooters even before they get their parking perks. When Vespa opened its SoHo showroom five years ago, most of its customers were collectors purchasing their second or third scooters, a sales manager, Aaron Peterson, said.

"Today we have everyone from Wall Street to construction workers to celebrities to college students riding these things," Mr. Peterson said, showing off a limited edition silver Vespa to a customer, Glen Heroy, who works as a clown in the Big Apple Circus.

A scooter lobby has also emerged to advocate for parking reform. With no on-street parking spots designated for scooters, most riders park illegally on the sidewalks and remove their license plates to avoid accumulating parking tickets.

"Scooters still run counter to the American idea that bigger is better," a scooter advocate, Gregory Heller, said of their slower rise to popularity here. As gas prices in America approach European levels, many Americans could start thinking smaller.

"You spend $2.50 a week on gas, which is much cheaper than the subway and more fun," Mr. Peterson told customers ogling the shiny scooters, which sell for between $3,200 and $6,000 a piece. "And the truth is that you never see a scooter traffic jam."