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 Maurice on August 6, 2017 at 4:29pm

I was out and about most of the afternoon today. Cars were parked in bike lanes everywhere I went.

The three most egregious examples:

- 3 cars were parked in the parking "protected" lane in front of the closed post office on State St. earlier today, right next to a legal parking space. When I rode past again about an hour ago, one of them was still there. No parking ticket.

- An Uber was parked in the Wabash lane in the South Loop right next to an empty curb space, presumably waiting for her fare to come out of a restaurant. 2 CPD officers ON BIKES, rode right past and didn't say a word.

- Post Lolla, Uber drivers and the like have been using the Dearborn Lane as a de facto parking lane. The pedicabs are almost as bad, riding directly down the middle leaving very little room for oncoming bikes to pass.

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Permalink Reply by Argonne69 on August 7, 2017 at 10:55am

225 N Franklin St. 311 report submitted.

Me: Did you know that parking in a bike lane is illegal?

Mail Carrier: It's OK. I'm not parking. I'm just going to run in and pick up the mail.

Me: (Deep Sigh)

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Permalink Reply by Argonne69 on August 8, 2017 at 10:48am

225 N Franklin St. 311 reports submitted.

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Permalink Reply by Argonne69 on August 8, 2017 at 11:23am

I've now posted over 200 photos of vehicles illegally parked in bike lanes since 1/3/17. I've submitted over 120 311 reports since they added the code in April. Nothing changes.

Face it. The city doesn't really give a rat's a** about the bike lanes, and the lost revenue. One traffic aide sitting at 225 N Franklin St could write dozens of violations a day. Heck, I average 2 a day in a 60 second span that I travel through the block.

I've written the alderman twice. He responded with a nice letter that cc'd the local police district, but still nothing changes.

So, what's next? A lawsuit? Can we force the city to enforce their own d*mn laws?

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Permalink Reply by gjc on August 10, 2017 at 8:33am

Argonne,
Thank you. Everything you've posted/shared has been appreciated.
Unfortunately, everything I can tell about the 311 reporting is that the city was planning on using that data as an exercise to find "hot spots." In March, the Department of Finance claimed they would be stepping up effort to enforce bike-lane violations, but I've been unable to locate any figures suggesting that has actually happened.
I'm surprised the Dept. of Finance hasn't actually stepped up on this. At $150 a ticket, that's a decent revenue stream that's untapped. Hell, give me the authority to issue parking citations and I'll bring an extra couple grand to the city every week without straying from my usual commute.

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Permalink Reply by Argonne69 on August 10, 2017 at 11:50am

Nothing the city does surprises me. I agree, give me a ticket book and I'll write hundreds of tickets. It's really not that hard. If I can catch 2 to 3 offenders in a 10 minute span, imagine what one could accomplish in an 8 hour shift.

Got hit by a truck today. Or should I say I hit a truck today. A**munch pulled out of an alley right in front of me on Wells St. I applied the brakes, but couldn't stop from hitting his front left quarter panel at ~3 mph. The idiots are out to get us. Two blocks later I almost hit a pedestrian who walked out against the red light. A**hole didn't bother to look, as his face was buried in his phone. He had his headphones firmly implanted in his ears, so he probably didn't hear the choice words I had for him.

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Permalink Reply by Ernesto Lube on August 9, 2017 at 6:40am

This happened around 8:55 AM today (https://youtu.be/7dCmC2fyHsk) - I happened to have forgotten my laptop at home, so I went back to get it (bonus ride for me). Unlocked bike, headed home… then this happens. A police car decides to go on the bike lane. If I wasn’t paying attention, they would have hit me!

It got me by surprise! And yes, the driver took up all two lanes on Dearborn between Adams and Jackson. Luckily there wasn’t a peloton of cyclists behind me. I had to hurry and pull over on to the sidewalk.

I got to the next intersection as you can see on the video, but what you can’t see (because camera was on my handlebars) is that I turned around to see what the emergency was. The police car turned off its lights and made a let turn. There was a lot of car traffic on Dearborn, sure. But to use the bike lanes as a shortcut? They probably hadn’t done this if there were more cyclists on the bike lanes.

But sure enough, observers will deduce that they simply used the bike lanes as a shortcut.

They weren’t young police men, they looked like older, police chief types.

Civilians might start picking up on this habit. Who knows…