Blogtown, PDX

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Misc Moto Forum Tomorrow Night

Posted by Scott Moore on Wed, Jul 11 at 1:15 PM

More than two years ago, I covered the first Motorcycle and Scooter Forum at Amnesia, and not being a motorcycle or scooter rider, I was immediately hit with one of two things: Either motorcycle and scooter riders are the crotchetiest group of people you could gather in one room, or they’ve been pretty well screwed by the city.

As the night progressed and I chatted with many of the attendees, I realized that their gripes were totally legitimate—for years, the city had ignored their concerns, specifically leading to a major lack of parking options, especially downtown. Plus, it was one of the first organized events where riders could sound off about city and state policies, and they had a lot of built-up frustration.

Fast-(or slow)-forward to this past May, when the city finally created a Motorcycle and Scooter Advisory Committee, which is designed to take input from riders in order to inform city policies that affect them. Riiiiiight, another advisory committee? Roll your eyes, but these have proved enormously successful for other groups, like the far more organized bicycle community.

The committee is still accepting applications through July 16—you can find out about the process here. But before that happens, a second Moto Forum is going down tomorrow evening at 7pm at Plan B (which, until very, very recently, was Acme) at SE 8th and Main. It’ll likely revisit some of the same complaints as the last forum, but, this time, there’s actually the possibility of impacting city policies.

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Comments

Last week I went to my parents' house in california, sat on my motorcycle, and then rode it up here. The first day in town I was riding downtown and had some trouble finding parking. Most cities, I've noticed, have city parking garages with free motorcycle parking. Portland, as far as I could tell, just has pay-for street parking, and each slot's the size of a car. So I rode in circles for a while, looking to see what other bikes were doing. I didn't really feel like taking up an entire car slot. I ended up seeing three different bikes parked in the little yellow areas between the car slots. So I assumed those spots were for bikes. I mean, they're the exact right size, and nothing else is going on with them. So I parked in one. It turns out, of course, that the yellow slots are $70 parking ticket zones.

The next while walking around I spotted a wandering parking attendant. I talked with her for about 20 minutes. The options for bikes and scooters are dismal. There are a few locations downtown with dedicated bike slots (I'm sure slot isn't the word I'm supposed to be using, but...), and all require payment. I suppose I should have checked the portlandonline map of locations before I went downtown. But then again it also probably shouldn't be such a dumb hassle. Usually parking a motorcycle is the easiest thing.

Anyway, thanks for the announcement.

Posted by rgratzer | July 12, 2007 3:02 PM

Bummer on the ticket--you should hit up the forum tonight and see what you can do to help/ask other riders for advice.

Posted by Scott Moore | July 12, 2007 4:00 PM

I would and I should.
But I made plans to see The Last Picture Show.
So I think I'll have to rely on your report.

Posted by rgratzer | July 12, 2007 5:00 PM

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