What's this doing in the bike lane?

Share your pics, videos, streets, stories of what you find in the bike lane of the non-bike variety that has an impact on your ride and/or your safety. I've decided to keep it a little more open ended - cars, snow, buses, garbage, cabs, etc. If they shouldn't be in the bike lane, go ahead and add it to this thread. Please be safe if you are taking pics or video! :-)

My hope is that we can collectively build some evidence of what we see when riding in the city with the overall hope of better enforcement of "bikes only" and improving maintenance.

Update: More Hashtags to Capture Vehicles in the Bike Lane

With popular hashtags:
#BikeLaneShaming

#LaneSpreading (Chicago Bike Selling)

#ClearTheWay (ActiveTrans), there are many options to capture violations.

We think you should use ALL of them AND post your photos on The Chainlink. ;-)

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve Weeks on July 25, 2018 at 7:49am

For a couple months earlier this year I had to use the #7 bus to get from Union Station to UIC (because I broke my ankle). I observed that the bus, when it was on Harrison, used the bike lane most of the time. TBF, when there was a bike in the bike lane the bus merged into the traffic lane. This happened every day. AFAIK, there is no policy that permits this (though it does make a bit of sense) and there is no signage to inform car drivers that they can't do the same.

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Permalink Reply by Argonne69 on July 25, 2018 at 9:05am

No, driving in a dedicated bike lane is illegal. The only exception is CTA buses that have to stop at designated bus stops to pick up and discharge passengers.

The basic problem is that there are over 200 miles of bike lanes. It would be fairly expensive to put up signage along the entire system. That said, the city/state does need to ramp up the education.

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Permalink Reply by V W on July 25, 2018 at 8:50am

Just an observation: my two cents is that the anti-bike people, the ones who are hostile to cyclists and biking infrastructure in general, are disproportionately conservative.

The CPD (and law enforcement in general, and CFD as well) community is disproportionately made up of conservative leaning folks.

I think that's why the CPD doesn't "give a rat's a**" about bike lane violations. They shouldn't be allowed to pick and choose what laws to enforce based on their own personal biases, but that's what's happening.

What's the solution? Well, I think shining a light on the problem, things like this thread, tend to help. I wonder if a COPA complaint might help too?

Another more far out there thing I've proposed, and I'll say it again, pass some laws that make it an environmental violation and allow our public health and environmental enforcement agencies (or some other agencies) write the tickets, and allow some of the revenue raised to go into their general funds, to incentivize them to enforce this. Watch how quick the CPD would start to enforce bike lane violations then- when it becomes more obvious to the public how much money they've been leaving on the table.