David Michael Miller
Last summer, Emile Cochran bought a Honda Metropolitan moped as a way to get to and from classes at UW-Madison. Cochran saved up for a year to buy the motorbike — and values it for more than just its convenience and style. She feels much safer riding her moped than she does waiting late at night for a bus after long days of studying and working.
But last August, the Common Council passed an ordinance that bans motorbike parking on sidewalks and terraces city-wide. Since the law went into effect Jan. 1, it’s been a lot harder for Cochran to find parking.
“It has been kind of difficult because cars will park in the designated moped spots so then they take four moped spots for one car and then you have nothing,” Cochran says. “Then you have to park in a car spot and pay for like you’re parking a car. There’s nothing you can really do about that; you could call parking authorities but if I need to park right then I can’t wait around.”
The parking restrictions were put in place to address moped clutter on downtown sidewalks. But the unintended ramifications of the ban are now becoming apparent.
Ald. David Ahrens, who voted against the measure, says it is hurting “many people who depend on a low cost means of transportation. That goes for students and workers who don’t live adjacent to reliable bus transportation and can’t pay for a car or...a parking rate of $12 a day.”
According to the state Department of Transportation, about 2,000 mopeds were registered in Madison in 2017. There are now 1,500.
Since January, the city’s parking enforcement has issued 90 citations for mopeds parked on terraces and UW Transportation Services has issued 794 parking citations for mopeds. And 41 mopeds have been cited for abandonment and towed by the city this year.
Scooter owners can pay for metered parking in city garages and designated motorcycle/moped street spots at a rate of $1 per hour or standard car spots that fit up to three scooters for $2 an hour. However, spaces are scarce. Violators of the new regulations risk $60 tickets.
Carolyn Wolff, a spokesperson for UW Transportation, says the university banned motorbikes from parking on sidewalks and terraces in 2004. It further increased regulations on mopeds in 2012 to cut down on intra-campus moped travel and alleviate traffic hazards. That year, it began requiring moped drivers to park in assigned lots or any of the university’s nine “all access” lots — this was intended to keep moped users from driving everywhere on campus.
Although this reduced congestion and complaints at UW, it led to more “moped chaos” right outside of campus, says Ald. Ledell Zellers, who represents a downtown district. With the UW restrictions, many moped owners started parking on city property on the outskirts of campus to avoid paying for parking.
So the city started contemplating its own restrictions. “We don’t invest in our sidewalks to be parking lots and when they become parking lots, that reduces their accessibility to people walking around and especially impedes people in wheelchairs,” says Ald. Zach Wood.
A city committee drafted the ordinance, which was designed to preserve sidewalks and terraces — the grassy area between sidewalks and streets — as public spaces for pedestrians, says Zellers. The committee also contemplated what type of vehicles should be given free parking, Zellers says. Many new apartment buildings provide moped parking in garages.
“I understand it is sometimes not as convenient for a moped owner to park in those provided spaces as it is to park the moped on the public terrace,” Zellers says. “In addition I understand that some apartment residents are reluctant to pay the building owner for using the parking which the building owner has paid to construct and made available for their use.”
Permits are available for moped spaces in city garages for $225 per year. The city also offers residential street parking permits for downtown neighborhoods, which allow residents to exceed the two-hour limits on many streets. Madison’s Parking Division added 12 moped on-street parking spaces to help motorists find parking downtown. Businesses can also pay a minimum annual fee of $500 to add motorbike parking outside their property in some areas (State Street not included). The spots are open to the public and can’t be reserved for private use.
Sabrina Tolley, Madison’s assistant parking utility manager, says the Parking Division also created information pamphlets, which parking enforcement officers put on motorbikes in the months before the law went into effect. It also collaborated with UW to publicize the new rules on social media.
Aaron Seligman, an east-side resident who has owned a moped for nine years, says Madison should have considered alternatives, like requiring an additional class on how to safely park mopeds or ticketing people for reckless driving. He was unaware of Madison’s outreach efforts on the new policy.
“I remember seeing it was passed but I never got any information saying you have a moped license and here are the spots you can park now, and I haven’t seen any of the new spots downtown,” Seligman says.
He says he’s been forced to drive his car more often and worries it will increase car traffic.
Randy Knudson, who owns Scooter Therapy on Few Street, has noticed a drop in sales since the restrictions took effect.
Knudson, who opened the store in 1991, says last year he sold more than 100 motorbikes. So far this year, he’s only sold 30. He expects he’ll soon be forced to close the shop and convert it to a convenience store.
“We’re barely keeping up,” Knudson says. “A huge part of my customer base has just been wiped away.”
Ahrens says the city overreacted. He believes moped congestion on sidewalks was only a problem on a few blocks downtown, mostly in front of large apartment buildings like the James at West Gilman Street and University Avenue. The new policy effectively outlaws the use of mopeds in Madison, Ahrens says.
That’s unfortunate, he adds, because scooters and mopeds are affordable and release a fraction of the carbon emissions that cars do.
“It’s a mixed bag and sometimes people have to use a broad brush and demonize something as a way of making their point,” Ahrens says.
Knudson feels it’s pointless to talk about the issue now since the law was already passed.
“Even this [conversation] is almost fruitless because the damage is already done,” Knudson says. “I’m not really sure what to do here.”
Editor's note: This article originally referred to Aaron Seligman by the incorrect last name of Crespo. It was also edited to clarify that motorbikes have been banned from parking on sidewalks and terraces since 2004. Additional regulations were put in place in 2012.