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No, mopeds and motorized scooters are not allowed on bike paths
By Brett on Wed, 05/18/2011 - 3:04pm
Ride a moped? Aside from the massive amounts of pollution they spew - yes, even your 4-stroke modern scooter): it seems an increasing number of you need a refresher in where you're not allowed to operate your scooter or moped in Massachusetts:
Any pedal bicycle which has a helper motor or a non-pedal bicycle with a motor [...] Cannot be ridden on off-street recreational paths but can use bicycle lanes along roadways.
Contrary to the popular belief of a number of hipster idiots, this means you can't ride your blue-choking-smoke-billowing Puch on the Paul Dudley White Bike Path (the paths that run on either side of the Charles River), nor the Southwest Corridor, nor the Minuteman path.
Even if state law didn't cover it - the majority of parks and paths in the area specifically exclude any motorized vehicles save emergency or maintenance crews, so leave the motorized skateboard/scooter contraption at home or keep it on the street.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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Comments
Also:
Git off mah lawn!
I salute the PSA, truly...
But, bikes keep riding on the Greenway and sidewalks; wheeled vehicles (motorized and, more often, pedal-powered) blow through red lights; and pedestrians jaywalk without regard to life or limb. It's a jungle of discourteous jerks out there, and the BPD doesn't really have the manpower to rein it in.
Yes, every single bike does this.
Also, where's Kaz? 3...2...
Tulip- don't you have signatures to collect or something?
But I like jaywalking
And I'm glad that Boston isn't full of pussy cops writing jaywalking tickets like California is. I always look both ways and hustle across the street, but I'm sorry if I ever personally added four seconds to your trip because you're too dumb and/or fat to get around the city without a car.
Germans don't jaywalk.
Boston and Germany are the two extremes of jaywalking I think. No one jaywalks there at all. Not even kids dressed up like punk rockers. Even if no car is visible for a mile in either direction- if there is a walk/don't walk sign- they wait for the walk signal. I found it a little disturbing actually.
I don't have a problem with jaywalking when no one is around and it is feasible without causing a traffic delay. But I live in the city so I have to drive in and out of it and yeah- I get upset at jaywalkers who cross my path on a green light. The Atlantic ave crosswalk at the mouth of Faneuil Hall drives me absolutely nuts. Mothers with strollers even- dashing across the street when the light just changes green . . . seen it over and over again. There's jaywalking and then there's just being unsafe or inconsiderate.
And I don't want the police to have to hand out tickets for this either. I bet no one would hate that more than a Boston police officer. But come on- there are rules to rule breaking even.
Well then
I'm sorry that I knocked the bag off your shoulder or the cel phone out of your hand while trying to avoid a collision between me, my bike, and your pathetic kindergarten-flunking self.
I'm also sorry to share air with someone who gets his thrills taking unnecessary and stupid risks with his/hers and other people's lives.
I'm still holding out for trained sheepdogs or, perhaps, a rancher with horse to start herding people where and when they are supposed to go.
Bikes are OK on the Greenway
There are big parts of the Greenway that allow bicycles (most of it in JP has two lanes, one marked for pedestrians and one for bicycles. Of course, no one actually pays attention to the lane markers, and they switch sides randomly after every cross-street, but the point remains), so by my reading of the statute, it's OK for scooters to drive on those same bits of path? Yikes.
Wrong Long Green Area
You're thinking of the Southwest Corridor Park that runs from Forest Hills to Back Bay. The Greenway is the one where the Expressway used to be, including between Fanueil Hall area and the North End.
One use of "two wheel lawnmowers"
Always fun to see them collide with the "I'm thinking differently by walking down the middle of the yellow line" lamers who head for Davis Square Station every day.
Of course, they're being ironic and individualist ... all sixty of them.
SIck editorial
I thought this was a news site.
No, not the modern 4-stroke ones
Did you read the comments in the link you posted where Alan (the guy who wrote the initial blog) admitted that some of the commenters on his post knew more about bike emissions than he did?
Vespa/Piaggio 4-strokes all meet Euro 3 standards that are tougher than the current EPA standards for scooters. On top of that, most Vespa (and the like) also come equipped with catalytic converters these days. Which were not as readily available in 2008 and were not separated from the analysis done in that blog.
Vespa and mint.com actually just released an infographic in the past month that claims 3-4x less CO2 emission than a compact car or SUV.
It simply doesn't pass the smell test to claim that a scooter running on a 4-stroke engine with a catalytic converter that burns a third less fuel overall is somehow putting out more emissions than any car which is using the exact same engine technologies these days.
read again
http://www.epa.gov/oms/regs/roadbike/420f03046.pdf
"Are motorcycles a less-polluting alternative to cars?
No, in fact, motorcycles produce more harmful emissions per mile than a car or even a large SUV. The current federal motorcycle standard for hydrocarbon emissions is about 90 times the hydrocarbon standard for today’s passenger cars. And when new emission standards go into effect, SUVs will be about 95 percent cleaner than today’s motorcycle."
Your "infographic", produced by a scooter company, focuses on CO2 emissions - which is the whole point of what CARB and others have been saying.
Scooters have 1960's-era emissions control technology, if anything. No EGR/CCV, no three-way converters, no electronic throttles, no O2 sensors, no fuel injection (Vespa only just introduced fuel injection, and only on their most expensive, largest-engined models.)
Oh, and they only have to meet the emissions standards in place for much less of their life than a car does.
Lastly, would you get it into your skull that Vespa's 4-cycle models are the top, and very small, segment of the scooter market? Read the goddamn news article. California is seeing the biggest problem with Chinese-made scooters, and they're the biggest segment of the market.
Come on, Brett
I already told you that your 2008 blog article was a bit out of date. You're going to back that up with an EPA report from 2003??
While they don't have EGR systems, they have something similar called a PAIR system (pulse air injection reaction system) that works similarly. Instead of returning exhaust to the engine to try and reburn the fuel, it sucks in extra unmixed fresh air from the exhaust port to help burn unburned fuel.
Also, fuel injection is in the LX150...the second smallest engine they sell. It appears it's been in there for a couple of years now actually.
Here's another analysis using the 4-stroke 150cc Bajaj scooters that the EPA originally (ab)used in their analysis quoted from your link. Note the newer scooters beat the old 2-stroke versions used by the EPA.
AND we can go back to this discussion that we've already had before where I explained to you that most emissions standards don't take engine volume into account. If the scooter is putting out a fraction of the total emissions over the same period time as a car, then while it's proportion of harmful emissions is higher, it's putting out far less harmful emissions relative to the car because it's just pumping WAY less ANYTHING into the air! Here's a 2005 Australian report that does the math for you on this....AND it even includes the fact that more 2-wheel vehicles means less congestion overall...which means less emissions from EVERYONE on the road which shouldn't be discounted either.
Need I go on?
Ah there he is.
Kaz, just stay off the paths, ok?
Then write what you mean!
Dude, you wrote "even your 4-stroke modern scooter". UH is popular, but doesn't reach a huge audience. I happen to be one of the people reading, one of the small number of regular readers who owns a scooter. Guess what? I bicycle a couple thousand miles per year, but I also drive a newer, larger-engine 4-stroke Piaggio, which I picked partly because of the emissions issue.
At this point, excluding a couple of family road trips each year that inflate the car's miles, I put about as many miles on bicycles as I do in the car as I do on the scooter.
Getting things into my skull
In 2008, Piaggio sold 27.7% of the US Scooter market. Another article I found for 2010 said that people were turning to Vespa and a few other "big names" more these days instead of cheap knockoffs is a search for quality, reliability, and brand over price.
East Coast = More Vespa/Piaggio
The Asian "rice burner" imports are a much bigger problem on the west coast, for obvious reasons (port of Long Beach, LA, SFO, Seattle/Tacoma ...)
The Italian scooters with the more advanced air quality technology are far more prevalent on the East coast and far more expensive on the west coast. I don't see alot of them in Portland or Seattle, and ads for them advertise pretty solid prices!
I can't give you the exact share number estimates because they are in a report in review that's on my desk and CARB wouldn't be happy if I leaked them ahead of press.
This includes Jamaica Pond,
where both motorized vehicles AND bicycles are prohibited from the pedestrian path that circles the Pond.
There are signs posted high above the walkway that must be intended for your basic Celtics player, but they are there and they are clear: no bikes at the Pond!