Hey folks,
Well, I (Brian) spoke at the Board of Trustees meeting today on behalf of those concerned about the new scooter laws, and I believe we made a cogent argument that genuinely changed the minds of many board members. (See a copy of the speech for details) The end result, on paper, is the same as what was in the modified proposal from yesterday: $24 fees and special scooter parking. Thus we did not get everything we wanted.
However, I think we made some real progress.
1. Promises of a $24 fee this year, and the chance to fight for no increase next year.
2. Promises of secure places to park.
3. The chance to make our case in the future. This includes positive perception from the board and also from key people in charge of this issue (including Chancellor Holden Thorp, several board members and importantly Parking Heads Carol Efland and Cheryl Stout)
4. The chance to work with ACT (The Advisory Committee for Transportation) which has grad student, undergrad and employee representatives. (The grad student member passed around articles about how scooters pollute worse than Hummers, and thus did not advocate very effectively on our behalf)
5. The chance to identify areas that are not motorcycle parking areas now that could be designated for scooter parking. This is the most exciting thing. More about this below.
So, while it wasn’t perfect, it was a definite step in the right direction. Many people were on our side, and the chairman of the board himself congratulated us as being the most professional, informative and organized group to approach the board in his tenure there.
What’s next?
We need to get people to find places on campus where we can make the argument for scooter parking, and collect a clear map of this soon, so that we can work with Cheryl Stout to get it together.
Help us do this in the next week or so!
For those on the main campus the bike parking area beside Manning Hall and behind Bynum Hall could easily designated as a scooter parking area. Most of the scooters I see are parked there already and I rarely see a bike parked there. Plus, its right beside the gated parking lot at Bynum so we wouldn’t be on the sidewalks.
There seems to be a good deal of room behind Memorial Hall as well which is accessed from Cameron St. and near the motorcycle parking beside Phillips Hall.
Please pass these parking options along to whomever is handling this.
So when and where should scooter riders go to get a permit?
The scooter permits won’t be necessary until the rules begin to be enforced in November. Beyond that the UNC Parking people haven’t given any information on when and where we can get the permit.
Thanks for the suggestions, Keith. I passed them on to the Parking folks.
Okay, if the permits won’t be necessary until November will they pro-rate the fee? Normally parking permits/CAPS stickers etc. are issued and are valid from Aug. 15 through the next Aug. 15th.
I did find it interesting though that the bike cop didn’t say anything to me while I was parking my scooter the other day, but did tell the smoker to go over to the flag pole.
DPS seems to be getting in gear. I spoke to a guy who was measuring a spot behind Memorial Hall along the stone wall beside the YMCA building that is slated to be scooter parking although I doubt that more than 4 scoots could squeeze in the space being marked off.