The Chainlink

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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I think the solution here is more 'marking' similar to the big Green band at the front of an intersection where a bike lane arrives, it would be really good to see the green here extend far to the left to fill that whole lane to give the cars that are cutting right to avoid the red CTA only bit the cue that they need to watch out for cyclists cutting left to avoid the parked things and the right hook that will be coming up immediately after etc. etc.

Paint is cheap. hopefully the'll figure out how to mark these things correctly and come back to fix these spots.

IIRC, they planned to extend it east another couple of blocks but are waiting for other construction projects to wrap up.

 

Same excuse they used for the new Clinton lane suddenly ending.  The Clinton one is even worse, because southbound bicycle traffic is suddenly dumped into the far left auto traffic lane.

Also shows a 'city information' sign being used for an ad. I don't think drivers need any more distractions.

This area right north of Kinzie on Dearborn, is always a problem. It is usually more of a problem from taxi cab's that always speed out of the drive without looking.

Heading North on Milwaukee.  Approaching Divison.

Double trouble!

Heading north on Milwaukee.  Just north of Erie.  Past the highway.

 Both the double trouble and the Fed Ex truck were Feb. 9th around 1pm

FedEx on Milwaukee is the worst.

An SUV was parked in the Deaborn lanes next to the County Admin Bldg. this morning.  As I approached, I saw a TMA employee talking to the driver.  I foolishly assumed that she would tell the driver to move.  Nope!  She just strolled away like nothing was amiss and then casually resumed "directing traffic."  Then, another driver saw the SUV parked there and nearly ran me over trying to park behind it.

I don't know why I ever bother going that way.  It's safer (not to mention faster) to just ride down the Loop streets that have no bike lanes.

Sharrow blazing a trail into 2 lanes of loading.

This has a lot of potential - focus on the commercial vehicles first with a letter writing campaign. If you see a commercial vehicle blocking a bike lane, snap a pic, provide the streets and a date stamp and post all of it here. We can follow up with an email campaign, sharing with corporate so that they can see how much visibility this has as well as the negative exposure it is costing their company. What do you think?

Streetsblog San Francisco:

Scold an individual who parks on a bike lane, and you’re probably not going to accomplish much. Chastise a cop who does it and you’ll get nowhere. But if it’s a commercial vehicle, sometimes–just sometimes–it might make a difference.

I took photos of the DHL truck and emailed them to DHL corporate. Here was the response:

Thank you for sending the pictures with the date and time stamp. DHL takes the safety of our employees, and the general public, very seriously. Our employee’s disregard for the law and the bicyclists traveling on Market St. will not be tolerated. I provided the Station Manager the pictures you sent. He is an avid biker and immediately got to work researching which courier was on Market St on that day and time. He will take appropriate action with this employee and he will address at the courier meetings for all employees to be notified of the proper use of the bike lane. I apologize for this behavior and assure you we are working to make sure this does not happen again. Thank you for providing us with the information and pictures. Please feel free to contact me.

Thank you,

Marsten Tullius
Area 2 Safety Specialist

It looks like the city plowed the Clinton lanes.  Didn't matter much, since most buildings illegally shoveled their sidewalks directly into the northbound lane.

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