beeKayjay

beeKayjay

4p

3 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0

14 years ago @ Moving Locals - Segways on the Burling... · 0 replies · +1 points

The point I'm making is not how easy or difficult a Segway may be to learn to use. My point is the effect Segways have on the true pedestrians--foot-travelers--in their vicinity. I have already experienced that. I didn't like it.

14 years ago @ Moving Locals - Segways on the Burling... · 2 replies · +1 points

P.S. Note that the VT legislature's definition of a Segway-as-pedestrian limits their speed to a maximum of 8 mph. Yet in 802Segway's proposal, they helpfully point out that the top speed of a Segway is only 12 mph, which is lower than the bikepath's speed limit of 15 mph.
Whoaaa, Nellie.
Did I read something in others' comments here about a slippery slope? In their proposal to use Segways in our community, this company is referring to mph figures beyond that which is stipulated to keep them in the category of pedestrians. I presume they will alter their proposal... but if the machines have the ability to accelerate to 12 mph, isnt' it simple human nature to make use of that ability...now and then?

14 years ago @ Moving Locals - Segways on the Burling... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree that it was a regrettable decision to give Segways the same rights and status as pedestrians. Had they been given a different status—one that recognizes the fundamental and very sizable difference they have to pedestrians, they could be meaningfully regulated as the machines that they are. Taking the example of bicycles (a form of transportation that I find extremely positive and beneficial): there are laws specific to their use which aim to promote the safety of everyone--the rider of the bicycle AND those in the vicinity of a moving bicycle.
Whatever their benefits, Segways are motor-powered machines. They are simply not the equivalent of a pedestrian.
Given that Segways have, however, been granted the rights of pedestrians, the only decision left for our community is the clunky one of “Segways yes-or-no” rather than the ability to address the actual features of this mode of transportation and the effects of its presence in areas of heavy pedestrian traffic that includes children and baby-strollers. I, too, have witnessed Segways in use in D.C., and my observation was that they have an intimidating effect on actual pedestrians. Foot-travelers instinctively understand that they had better make way for the comparatively fast and heavy Segways, just as they do for other motor-powered vehicles. Cyclists, on the other hand, are regulated by laws specific to the features of bicycles as a mode of transportation, which at least helps to attenuate potential safety issues between pedestrians and cyclists.
What Segway proponents are not addressing here is that we cannot have it both ways: Segways were not given a comparable status to that of bicycles (i.e. meaningfully regulated), but rather exactly that of pedestrians. To say that Segway users have helmets and all the rest is comparing Segways to bicycles (or skateboards). Yet their use cannot be regulated as can bicycles precisely because their legal status falls with that of pedestrians. If Segways users need helmets, does that not tell us a little something about their potential effect also on people nearby in the case of accidents? Nevermind all that, they have the same rights as pedestrians.
The fact that a tour company has written up a safe and courteous plan for their lobbying effort to win the right to sell tours for profit on our bikepath does not mean that afterwards, having granted them permission to do so, the City will have any recourse when other businesses or groups move in with more Segways on the bike path. If Segways have the same rights as pedestrians, and Burlington has granted their use on the bikepath, then that's that. We will necessarily have to accept all of the consequences of that decision.
My vote rests firmly with the other voices here who support exclusively human-powered traffic on Burlington's bikepath.
NO to Segways.