This morning I heard a piece on the radio about scooter sales in New York City. One of the comments piqued my interest.
[The owner of Vespa SoHo, Zachary] Schieffelin says he hopes this means New York will start to look more like London or Rome — the streets buzzing with as many scooters as cars.
Europe has had high fuel prices since the end of WWII. I would suspect that this has contributed as much to scooter use as have the older shapes of the cities — more like New York than Los Angeles — if not more so, particularly as the European cities have become more automobile-oriented.