Park It
MAG asks the next Government to issue clear guidance for a proportionate approach to motorcycle parking charges.
Parking policy has increasingly shifted from meeting demand to managing demand. This is achieved by restricting supply and charging to influence consumer choices. The usual justification for managing demand is the promotion of the prescribed sustainable transport list of acceptable choices. Motorcycles, despite their unquestionable contribution to making the transport system truly sustainable, are swept into the punitive approach designed to restrain use of cars.
Motorcycle parking has traditionally been provided free of charge. Claims that difficulties with pay and display systems for motorcycles have been overcome with new tech and mobile phone apps entirely miss the underlying logic for providing free motorcycle parking.
The current push for purely emissions-based parking charges is questionable. Parked vehicles are not the ones producing the emissions.
A reasonable and balanced approach should cover far more factors than simply a vehicle’s environmental impact. A transport system needs to balance environmental, economic, and societal aspects of sustainability. Any parking policy must follow this basic premise rather than focusing purely on environmental impact.
A motorcycle is a light weight, economical and space-saving vehicle with the potential to help relieve congestion and thus emissions. Parking policy must reflect that and ensure, if anything, an over-supply of fit-for-purpose, secure, and free parking facilities for motorcyclists in order to increase uptake of the mode, especially in busy urban environments.
The increase in last-mile delivery on mopeds and scooters also highlights a significant area of concern that could easily be addressed by the new Government. MAG calls for the Government and local authorities to allow motorcycles 15 minutes waiting time parked parallel to the kerb so as not to obstruct traffic, on all non-motorway roads, unless specifically prohibited by notice, regardless of other restrictions, e.g. double yellow lines. Such an allowance would benefit motorcycle users such as couriers, whose work supports the business world, as well as encouraging motorcycle usage generally, thereby reducing congestion and pollution.
Government intervention is required to redress the balance and provide leadership to ensure a proportionate and fair approach to motorcycle parking is delivered. This requires a government prepared to Move on Motorcycling.
MAG is asking riders in the UK to get creative in their approach to placing motorcycling in the general election discourse. The ‘Act Now’ page recently added to the MAG website offers a template letter for riders to use when asking candidates for their views on motorcycling issues. Please visit the ACT NOW page now to see how you can get involved.
If you have never been a MAG member, have let your membership lapse, or are thinking you need to save some money by not renewing this year, we would love you to join, re-join or stay with us. If, like us, you are passionate about motorcycling, want to see motorcycling continue in the future, and want to preserve all that you love about it, we hope it will be an easy choice to make. MAG’s strength is in numbers. The riding community can demonstrate strength when it unites. If you want to say you played your part to defend motorcycling, please… join MAG today