I ride home, most nights, on SE Salmon/Taylor from 7th-47th.
Several times a week I encounter a person riding a scooter up the greenway. It’s a loud scooter and it leaves a several block long trail of fumes behind it.
It’s gross, it gives me a headache, it makes me feel sick.
I know I’m not the only one who encounters this person, has anyone ever managed to flag them down and ask them not to ride on the greenway? Could we make an effort to do so? Perhaps they aren’t aware how bad of fumes they are leaving behind.
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That’s how they do it in Copenhagen. Don’t we want to be like Copenhagen?
Greenways as I have understood, are not carfree. They are designed to slow traffic flow, and make travel safer for peds and cyclists. Your neighbor has a right to use the greenways on their scooter.
,…oops posted too fast !
My other thought, was…. Are there greenways where motorized travel is prohibited? Not mups, of course.
The problem is not that this person is using a motorized vehicle and that is clearly not my complaint. The problem is that this two stroke scooter is a gross polluter. It’s causing me (and I assume other riders) to feel sick and have a headache. Sure, he or she has a legal right to ride on the street, but it’s discouraged as a through street for motor vehicles and common decency would say keep an out of tune belching vehicle off the road entirely and certainly off the greenway.
Bicycling is basically a sport, and sports have hazards. Breathing bad air is one. If you are a skier you might run into a tree or get stuck in an avalanche. If you are a surfer a shark might bite your foot. But maybe… check into noise laws, licensing laws, etc. and do your homework. There are a few people who go past my house on vehicles that are actually not legal on the roads, but you will have to do your own homework.
In the city, bicycling is transportation, not sport. Bicycles are not toys.
People cycling for transportation are not participating in a sport in the same way that all drivers are not part of NASCAR.
“Bicycling is basically a sport”
So much trouble due to this all too common misperception. Thanks for spelling it out so clearly for us.
**This comment has been deleted because it was unecessarily mean toward the author of the post. chris, if you’d like to continue commenting on BikePortland, please make your points in a more constructive way. Thanks – Jonathan**
Wow. What a waste of time. I will never get back the seconds I spent figuring out that your comment was a cranky waste of time!
Hmmm, I didn’t call anyone names, or anything mean really. I just used witty humor to point out the undeniable fact that there much more toxic and numerous polluters surrounding all of us. Are satire and sarcasm 2 more concepts/words that need to be added to the list of things that portland public schools fail to teach it’s students, like stop and share? I guess some people like Larry the Cable Guy, and some people like George Carlin. Someone has to point out the things that most people don’t like to think about.
for the record I didn’t ask them to remove your post. I did think making some comments/assumptions about me, where I work, etc, were out of line, unless maybe you know me… do you?
Obviously people need to make choices about how they get around. Is it really too much to suggest that if you have a very poorly tuned combustion vehicle that is literally belching fumes, you ride it among the cars and not on the few streets that are supposed to be prioritized for active transportation?
If it is actually smoking bad and Has a discernible plate number, you could report it through the DMV, but I think they are DEQ exempt, so maybe not. In my ex
…in my experience with scooters and mopeds, it will soon break down or suffer catastrophic failure of something or other and will be left in the garage.
I’ve seen (and heard, and smelled) that scooter as well. From the sound of when the rider lets up on the throttle, assuming he does so at every stop sign, his scooter is audible maybe ten full blocks from when he passes my house. These vehicles have no purpose. All two-stroke motors should be removed from the streets.