Vespanomics: Scooters to Save the Planet!

A cool chart shows how some U.S. cities are promoting the use of scooter to help relieve traffic congestion and reduce gasoline consumption:



The chart comes from a blog post at Mashable.

Vespa Envy

Something in me longs for a Vespa. But the prices are just sooooo up in the stratosphere, as far as scooters are concerned.

The LX 150 looks sharp, but at MSRP $4,199, what are they thinking? I can get a brand-new 2006 Honda Shadow Spirit 750 for $6,399. You need motorcycle certification for the little Vespa in Florida, so if you had $4,000 to spend, why not just get a real motorcycle? The prices for used Japanese bikes are great.

Still, I do feel an undeniable attraction to the Italian scooter. Must be that Roman Holiday thing. Who wouldn't want to be Audrey Hepburn in this photo?

Maybe I'm just a cheapskate. I'm looking at the 2006 Vino 125 from Yamaha. For $2,499, it's also going to cost less to fix when it breaks, I'm almost certain.

Use Less Gasoline

I knew I'd be able to find recent press connecting scooters and the current U.S. gas-price problem. This article comes from the Associated Press, via the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Post-Gazette, Aug. 23, 2005. Their title was "Motor scooters gaining popularity in U.S.: Some owners gas up just once or twice a month," and the writer is Joe Kafka. It covers all the bases:

As gasoline prices soar, the popularity of peppy, fuel-sipping motor scooters -- most easily get 50 miles per gallon and some of the smaller ones get up to 80 mpg -- is soaring. Sales, estimated at 86,000 last year in the U.S., have doubled from 2000, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council.

I was amused to see that the dateline for the article is Pierre, the capital of South Dakota -- a state that is known to get some serious snow in the winter!