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Some North Enders fed up with tour groups on Segways
By adamg on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 11:14pm
Matt Conti reports the North End Waterfront Neighborhood Council will oppose an attempt by the owner of a Segway tour service to sell non-alcoholic beverages to parched customers after exhausting rides on the moving mini-platforms because of "abusive parking," dangerous Segway maneuvering and training right on the sidewalks of Commercial Street. The tour-service owner retorts some of the residents are themselves pieces of work.
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Comments
Ahh..can't you feel the love..
Funny how these self serving yuppies want to pick on a small business owner. My favorite is "Brett Regan, 90 Commercial: Boston Gliders has been a very bad neighbor, and show poor integrity in how they abuse parking. Gliders speed around sidewalk corners and are hazard." Yes, let's talk about the abuse of parking in the North End. Ever try driving down Hanover street any given night of the week? A 3 minute ride can take up to 10 due to the constant double parking by every restaurant's valet service and the a-holes who just want to run into Mike's for a quick cannoli. Why don't they get their knickers in a twist about that? Maybe because Boston Gliders is owned by a guy named Danley, not Ianucci, not Lammatina, not Langone. And we all know how the majority of the well to do in what used to be the North End feel about us native born Boston Italians..as one actually said to me: "they...they know people!"
So are you attacking yuppies
So are you attacking yuppies here or Italians? Italian yuppies, perhaps?
1) Why are you trying to
1) Why are you trying to drive down Hanover St. when there's better ways around the North End?
2) While I'm not always on there neighborhood associations sides, they're in the right here. These Segways are vehicles, not pedestrian traffic , and should be limited to the road just like bikes; especially in a high pedestrian area like the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Quincy Market and the North End, especially Hanover.
As they become more prevalent, you’re going to see a bunch of issues cropping up because of absent minded tourists. If the leader of the free world couldn’t handle one, how do we expect Boston tourists to?
Sure..I'll bite
1. I'm a chauffeur, I have to drive down Hanover St sometimes so I can explain to out of towners why Mike's is to be avoided like the plague and why the Modern rules.
2. So your argument is there could be potential injuries from Segway operators? Do you have any idea how many times I've been hit by bike messengers in this city in my lifetime? Who is more dangerous?
3. George Bush had trouble finding his way out of the sheets in the morning.
Never said I was against
Never said I was against being stricter with bike messengers or commuters. Both frequently complain about vehicles traffic, but find it ok to disobey traffic laws when it suits them.
I’m both a propionate of making the city more bike friendly, while also cracking down on abuse of traffic laws.
Re your point #1
AMEN TO THAT!
Modern rules, Mike's sucks. If the line is too long at Modern (which is about 99.999999% of the time), go to Maria's.
Hanover Street (if I had my way, most city streets, but it's a start) should definitely an Area Pedonale. The fire station could stay, as emergency vehicles could be exempted. As could deliveries to local businesses during specified hours.
In Boston, you need
In Boston, you need PERMISSION to sell non-alcoholic beverages? What would the founding fathers say about that?
And seriously? "and confirmed the lack of permission to use the Greenway parks for training". Just shoot me now.
You know what, don't shoot me yet, I am going to apply for permission for my cousin to use the greenway fountain next summer. I wouldnt want to ruin her visit to Boston because she doesn't have a fountain use permit
"Aww, the poor guy's just
"Aww, the poor guy's just tryin' ta make a buck. Isn't this 'Merica?" Tearing up the Greenway,making already congested North End streets impassable and littering them with empty $4 bottles of water and cans of Glug isn't much of a neighborhood contribution. Take it walkin', pal.
Yeah..wtf?!!
Yeah, the chains they put on those Segway's in the winter..really tearing up the old Greenway. Why I can remember when we were kids, we would put bleach on our Segway tires before we would go dragging down the Lynn Marsh Road. What fun! And goddamn those early settlers, couldn't they see that someday people would need those streets to be open and wider so they could park their 535i's on Sheafe Street? Yeah!! Why can't the Segway guy be a better neighbor?, you know,like Nick Varano, who contributes to the neighborhood by clogging up Hanover Street every night and charges $11.95 for a veal parm sub. That's civic mindedness!
OK, no problem Filipov. I'll
OK, no problem Filipov. I'll just back my car onto your front lawn tomorrow and pull some donuts. There are no chains on my tires so, by your logic, I should do no damage at all.
Let's take this argument to the logical conclusion: Ban all businesses from the North End. Since there is no difference at all between a Segway (whose users can't decide whether they are pedestrians or vehicles) and a motorcycle, scooter or automobile (whose uses are confined to the street and have had rules, road markings, signage, curbs, traffic patrols, super-sized tunnel construction projects dedicated to their use) and the only legitimate means of transport are the feet, horses and carriages that our rewilded city of Tyler Durdens deems fit, let's just take away everyone's impetus for visiting in the first place. Flood the waterfront with molasses, dig up the cemeteries, turn the Old North Church into a marketplace and convert Paul Revere's house into affordable housing. That should solve it.
It's threads like this that make me miss the artery.
I've been nearly hit by a Segway on Commercial Street
but it didn't belong to this tour company, just to some person who liked riding it there, right past Union Wharf where I used to work. Segways are quiet and give no warning to someone walking off the wharf onto the sidewalk.
As for the Rose Kennedy Greenway, motorized vehicles are not allowed there, and that includes Segways (but there's probably a special exception for motorized wheelchairs).
Segways should not be
Segways should not be classified as vehicles for the same reason wheelchairs, with 4 or six wheels shouldnt be. They assist the mobility-impaired.
Is that really the use
Is that really the use they're put to by Segway tour companies? Or anyone? No, I'm sorry, this is like saying cars help the mobility-impaired, sure it's strictly true, but not really the real world use case.
I didn't know that Tim and
I didn't know that Tim and Tammy from Topeka's Slurpee habit qualified as a mobile impairment. Segways are every urban huckster's means of milking the tourists for walking tour money without actually having to know anything about the city. The hordes walking the Freedom Trail downtown can get unwieldy at times, but at least they learn something and stay out of the streets.
Riiiiiight Socially
Riiiiiight
Socially impaired.. maybe.
A mobility-impaired person
A mobility-impaired person would have far more experience safely using a segway, though, removing the nuisance factor. Segways used by the mobility-impaired should be exempted just as wheelchairs are. Segways used by joyriding tourists should not.
They're a menace. It's no
They're a menace. It's no wonder Dean Kamen threw up his hands when they never fulfilled their intended purpose and moved on to other projects -- like wheelchairs that climb stairs. The minute some couple from Oslo uses those to take a "crawling tour" of the city, I'm clotheslining people.
One could easily say ...
the exact same thing about cars in areas of the city where the infrastructure wasn't designed around them. Cars weren't around to begin with, they drive at high speeds and hurt people, get parked irresponsibly, etc. All in what you are used to.
Absolutly Right
I'd be in favor of making Hanover a pedestrian street only too, with the cross streets the only ones open to traffic.
But that would make too much sense.
For the most part, besides a few areas downtown (DTX, Chinatown, NE, Beacon Hill), Boston is pretty good with keeping the majority of traffic to main arteries. These areas should ask some hard questions and look for ways to make downtown more pedestrian friendly.
Hanover as pedestrian street
I see one big obstacle to this otherwise good idea: a fire station just north of the Paul Revere Mall.
Yes, but...
by default, the side walk is for pedestrians and the street is for cars. Who should be asked to give up precious space for a mad (not in the angry sense) genius' invention? In Boston, and especially the North End the answer is "NO F'ing way"!
I will admit that my opinion is biased. I think Dean Kaman is a genius, but the Segway is the answer to a question that no one asked.
Continued urban myth
The Segway is barely wider than the space normally taken by 1 person. It's footprint is 19"x25". The average man is about 18-22 inches wide. There are plenty of times that people can't get down the sidewalks of the North End *anyways*. The streets weren't made for 2 parking lanes, 2 driving lanes, and modern lane width, etc....so, let's screw the sidewalks!
Why should we give up precious space to the Segway? Because the Epoch of the Car needs to come to a close. Remove a single parking lane and you'd have room for sidewalk cafes, Segways, more foot traffic (which means more people/dollars spent), and more breathing room so that there'd be less whining and shoving among "neighbors".
Bikes aren't any wider than
Bikes aren't any wider than people, either, but that doesn't mean they belong on sidewalks in commercial areas. I agree with you that the sidewalks on Hanover street ought to be wider - they are pretty much impassible to anyone/thing moving more than 2 miles an hour - but realistically I don't think putting Segways on the existing sidewalk makes that any more likely to happen.
Footprint isn't just width
Show me a 19" long bike (that can also stop in a heartbeat and reverse without falling over) and I'll show you a bike that wouldn't create any havoc in a commercial area.
Here's a great paradox for you. It's illegal to ride your bike on a sidewalk in a central business district (like the North End, Central Square in Cambridge, etc)...however, all of the bike racks in those places are on the sidewalks...which means it's okay to walk your bike on the sidewalks...which is a bigger footprint and often less flexible/maneuverable than if you had been riding it.
As far as the stealthy approach of a noiseless Segway...try walking across the BU bridge and having a bike come up from behind you without announcing themselves or ringing a bell or something. Holy crap, you won't think you could jump into the river fast enough. What about rollerblades? Those are probably already banned, right? So, then what about the wheelie shoes kids have? The problem isn't the Segway...it's inconsiderate jerks. "On your left" should be the calling card of any Segway driver/cyclist/rollerblader on a sidewalk with pedestrians.
This whole thing is just nonsense.
OK, so we're settled;
OK, so we're settled; unicycles are OK on the sidewalk as long as the rider uses a bell or a goofy horn.
Send in the clowns!
Absolutely.
a guy here
There's a guy here at work who has something wrong with his leg and rides a segway around the building. He has no trouble getting into and out of a fairly crowded elevator. He doesn't take up that much space. It's a little intimidating to see the thing rolling at you, but he's good at controlling it. In general I think neighborhood associations in boston act like a bunch of brownshirts, and it's also pretty appalling that you have to a license to sell normal beverages in a situation like this. But I could see their point about Segways being something of a nuisance, at least on Hanover.
expert users do not equal
expert users do not equal tourists. I'm sorry, but these groups are in no way safe to people on sidewalks.
Absolutes are never absolute
What if the tourist owns a Segway back home and uses it to commute to work every day?
Or, better, what if the
Or, better, what if the tourist is a member of a professional Segway team and teaches his/her fellow tourists how to ride as well? Maybe the tourist is motion impaired, doesn't know it, hops on the Segway and opens up a whole new world. Imagine the possibilities...
Exactly.
Sharing the sidewalk is fine till you nearly get plowed into by some macho douchebag in brightly colored spandex riding his fancy set of wheels like a complete jackass. Unfortunately, during spring, summer and fall, one encounters these idiots several times per day. If you're on foot it gets damn annoying. This is why we need rules, laws, regulations and what have you.
Agreed that cities have been
Agreed that cities have been able to adapt, with varying degrees of success, to transportation forms they were not designed to have and given time, we could probably adapt to these things as well. The problem with the segway tours as they stand right now, though, is that you stick a tourist on one with virtually no training and no knowledge of a congested, crowded neighborhood and set them loose with a vehicle that could seriously injure themselves, pedestrians or property. It's more like taking a 16-year-old kid who has never been behind the wheel of a car, and assuming that with ten minutes of instruction he'll be just fine to navigate Kenmore Square at noon on Opening Day.
Who dat who doesn't know what they're talking about.
The wheelchair based on the gyroscopic technology came first.
Dean Kamen is quite happy with how the Segway has become a known and used vehicle. What's a shame is that his vision to have enough of them out there that cities would have to contend with this new form instead of shunning it (like the North End wants to do) is not coming to fruition.
This happens to all sorts of groups. Look at how the city and state basically don't want to acknowledge ANY two wheeled vehicles (bikes are just NOW getting bike lanes and new road safety laws), scooters have a bunch of new regulations intended to turn them into cars...which then meant the city had to pretend it doesn't have rules to throw them into on-street parking (parallel to the curb only!!), motorcycles have no legal anti-parallel parking available in the city...
The problem for Segway owners is that they don't have "Segway User Groups" who rally in front of the State House and City Hall to force the politicians to actually acknowledge and LEARN something about what they're purportedly legislating from on high. Scooters were screwed until they made enough noise on Beacon Hill. Cyclists probably have some of the best organization and got a number of good changes made in the city...after a LOT of hassle. Instead, Segways can be marginalized...and that's what's happening to them.
Thats exactly right. Our laws
Thats exactly right. Our laws are aimed at CARS and PEDESTRIANS and then every other vehicle is expected to fit into one of those categories. A few decades ago "motorcycles" were added, but a scooter and a harley are very very different.
The fact that Massachusetts requires a vehicle license to use an electric-assist bicycle is madness. I don't get what's so hard about simply writing new sets of laws for bikes, scooters, golf carts, segways etc.
Oh, I'm sorry, did the little
Oh, I'm sorry, did the little clip art characters not like someone criticizing their toy?
It's funny, when I last spoke with Mr. Kamen, he didn't sound all "happy" with how the Segway turned out, especially considering that the revenue from it and the now uncertain PUMA project wasn't going to fund DEKA's other pursuits -- like the brain-controlled prosthetic "Luke Arm" (which DARPA had to pick up the bill for) or his "Slingshot" water purification system.
As for the scooter and bicycle lobbies you speak of, perhaps much of their clout comes from having either predated or shared the road with automobiles in the past. Kamen's "vision" was not to flood the world with them so "cities would have to contend with them," but to provide an option to people with disabilities who sought transport that was more functional and less unwieldy than Rascal-style motorized scooters or wheelchairs. Sadly, the world went Costanza on the Segway and it is now a nuisance apparatus whose operators are tourists who may only uses them for a few hours over one day, instead of people who rely on them throughout their lives and actually master their controls.
If this tour group and its customers are being "marginalized," it's because they should be. This is the equivalent of holding for-profit wheelchair races in the North End and expecting residents and businesses to offer their congratulations for doing so. All the straw man arguments and concern trolling in the digital ether won't change that. One day a rain might come to wash all the unsustainable automobiles back into the blast furnaces from whence they came, but a limited-use device hijacked from the disabled by tourists and moneyed Job Bluth wannabes won't provide that precipitation.
Actually it's spelled
Gob for George Oscar Bluth.
Insult me all you want
You're still wrong. I'm not the creator of Soxaholix, just an avid fan, and I don't even own a Segway. The price point is just too high for the purpose. I drive a scooter that costs about a third as much and has a bigger range.
Kamen's vision was absolutely to have enough Segways in the world to force cities to redesign around them. From his own mouth:
This isn't for the handicapped exclusively by any means. The first sales were to the Post Office, police departments, warehouse workers, and then the general public for short distance traveling. The IBOT (wheelchair PREDECESSOR of the Segway) uses this tech for the handicapped. This was Kamen's way of improving downtown living AND also still selling it to those more fit than a wheelchair but less fit than to walk/bike 5 miles to work.
Also, there's not a ton to master. Lean forward, lean backwards. The disconnect is that anyone seeing it from afar isn't going to realize just how easy it is to ride one. People like those that would complain about it on the sidewalks will look at it and go "god, that must be hell to operate". If they were to try one, they'd realize it's not that difficult at all. It's amazingly well built for the user's own habits in walking.
I just have two questions: Do you even live in the city of Boston? Would any decision about whether this tour group is allowed to use the sidewalks (already moot anyways because that's already decided) even impact YOUR life one iota?
I spoke with him four months
I spoke with him four months ago and you hand me a nine-year-old story? Does your blind fanaticism know no end?
The first sales were not to civic and commercial entities, but to private individuals -- folks you've never heard of who use them to travel what we consider "walking distance." Kamen may have broadened his vision, but that broadening lead to P.U.M.A., not to mass adoption of the Segway. His qualm, it seems, is that it was adopted by the tourism industry and turned into a novelty. He believes this turned the aforementioned civic and business groups off of the idea, but more importantly, that it attached a Rascal Scooter stigma to the device for the very people it was supposed to help.
There's not a ton to master on a bicycle, either, but that doesn't reduce the learning curve. My suggestion is to walk along the path of these tours one day, as I do to get to my business (I live in JP, work in the North End), and see how many tour group members "master" Segways within the first day. It's not pretty. That's why I'm on this thread -- not to be contrarian, but to make people realize that this group hasn't been such a great neighbor and is actually a bit of a hassle to some of us who live and work in the area. I appreciate your desire to see things change, but I think the Dean Kamen of 2001 could tell you that change needs to come from public transport down, not Segways up. A viable and expansive public transportation system makes much of what you're talking about possible. I never thought I'd see New York City shut down Broadway through much of Midtown. The MTA has its problems, but it's good enough to allow such a thing to happen.
Segways
This request has nothing to do with the safety of segways and the use of sidewalks. That issue has already been fought in the north end and lost. Segways have the right to use the streets and sidewalks per boston's current laws, so this should not be an issue. This request is for serving coffee and non-alcoholic beverages to their customers. The board has no right to turn them down based on their petty feelings of what is right and wrong.
we were approached by other neighbors who tried to stir up issue
"abusive parking," dangerous Segway maneuvering and training right on the sidewalks of Commercial Street. The tour-service owner retorts some of the residents are themselves pieces of work.
We live on Commercial st and understand that the segways are new, We have never seen anything but the opposite of what is described. The groups are small and trained well and leave a few times a day. We have seen them walk the segways across the street to the greenway when the sidewalks where busy so the sidewalks where not overtaken by the segway training.
Yes they have a large Van but also they keep the place very clean, and kept another store front from going vacant. We have had to look at the empty shoe store for almost 2 years now.
We want them to know not every neighbor feels that they are a problem if anything everyone seems so happy when comming back from their Segway ride. Some day we will get up the nerve to go try one.
Thank you
For showing me that not everyone who lives on Commercial St is a soulless yuppie carpetbagger. A blanket prejudicial statement, I admit, but one backed up by way too many bad experiences.
Three weeks later at the Globe...
Andrew Ryan has the scoop...I guess UHub wins again.