I was down in Orlando yesterday and while I was wandering around downtown I came across the above image. I talked with one of parking enforcement officers who told me the city of Orlando made the switch from cars to bikes 10 years ago. He told me how upset he was when they took his car away and gave him a bike. But he says now that he "would quit the job if they tried and force me back into a car." "Using the bike for this type of work makes the job so much easier", he told me. He also told how he no longer has to find parking, block streets or driveways taking up valuable space in the course of doing his job.
Knowing how strapped jacksonville is for cash these days. I wonder how much money is spent yearly on the fleet of cars, trucks and vans used by our parking enforcement department? I wonder how many bikes could be purchased and parking officers outfitted for just the fuel and maintenance costs that the current parking enforcement fleet uses.
Wouldn't it make perfect sense for parking enforcement to replace their cars with bikes at least for the urban core neighborhoods of Downtown, Riverside and Springfield? With Orlando implementing this program 10 years ago and Jacksonville being a firm practitioner of the *Post20 Plan. Will we have to wait another 10 years before seeing highly intelligent and effective transitions in local government transportation uses like this?
*Post20 Plan: A local or state government will not make any progressive move to enhance the livability of said city or state until 20 years after all other cities or states.
3 comments:
That's very cool. I often see little golf cart buggies used for parking enforcement, but I don't think I've seen too many bikes. I linked to this from Twitter.
I support your expectation. :)
Hi Fritz, We went through the Golf cart phase about 10 years ago. For some reason our parking enforcement made the switch back to cars.
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