Vespa'd Interest

by Christopher Schwartz

It was election season when Mayor John Street walked into Vincenzo Mercuri's Vespa dealership in Manayunk. Campaigning to decrease city traffic, Street promised to compose a plan to deal with the city's scooter-parking woes.

Scooter drivers, like those who rallied across the city during the First Annual National Scooter Week last month, complain that parking laws for their vehicles are nebulous. In fact, there are none. The Philadelphia Traffic Code only mentions motorcycles, as in, "No person shall park a motorcycle within a metered parking space unless the motorcycle is parked parallel to and within 12 inches of the curb, and within 24 inches of the front end of such metered parking space."

Law enforcement officials explain that if a scooter is leaning against a building, parked out of the way of both pedestrians and passing cars, the vehicle shall not be fined. Still, scooter drivers report they are fined frequently. Though the mayor never followed up on his meeting with Mercuri — his office says the matter "probably went to the Parking Authority," though a spokeswoman there said they have no jurisdiction — the scooters' cause may not be destined for obscurity.

The issue has been picked up by Brian Abernathy, a legislative aide for City Councilman Frank DiCicco, and the councilman's son, Christian, who's an attorney. This fall, after being approached by Mercuri, they are now pushing their own plan: 3-foot-by-5-foot scooter parking spaces every four to six blocks in Center City with U-bolt strongholds to prevent easy thefts. Abernathy says they hope to propose legislation in the fall after they find out the results of a Parking Authority study of handicapped-parking-space usage in Center City. (Some business owners say many of the spots go unused over the course of a workday).

"To offset the cost to the city for the U-bolts," Mercuri explains, "every scooter driver would be required to pay a $40 annual permit and provide his or her own lock and chain."

Mercuri argues the plan would put Philadelphia among the world's scooter cities. In Rome and Paris, scooters are such an intrinsic element of local culture that they have their own driving lanes. Scooters aren't yet that important in Philadelphia — Mercuri estimates there were only about 1,500 registered scooters in the city last year. However, that number is rising quickly: Mercuri and his business associates say they've seen 30 percent bumps in sales annually.

"We want this plan to be a stepping-stone toward enhancing Philadelphia's stature in the world," Mercuri says.