Car Parked Unattended

Photo by Wlerik

Comments

[Brendan]

OMG!! A car bomb!

[Bilsko]

Maryland plates = Should know better.

Fleet Car number (2577) = Doesn't give a sh&%#t.

[DaveS]

I'm shocked -- SHOCKED! -- to see an official car parked blocking a bike lane. I bet that never happens more than a dozen times a day in that particular location.

And "Quest Diagnostics" is critical infrastructure. What other commercial health care services company would the gummint turn to for drug and tox testing in a national emergency? We should consider ourselves honored to allow them free and unfettered use of America's Bike Lane.

My JRA-cam has about half a dozen pictures of vehicles parked in the bike lane in that location - and I don't regularly pass through there. Homeland Security is the most frequent offender, but diplomats and vehicles with those magic "Special Police Permit" cards are others. Saw but didn't capture an ICE car with NM tags once parked there on a diagonal - blocking both lanes and poking into the buffer - for more than two hours. Official business is one thing, but even granted that it's still parking like a jerk.

It's not that we don't have a lot of good infrastructure. It just doesn't matter when it is routinely sacrificed and set aside for the convenience of authorities and semi-authorities at their whimsy. JRA-cam also has about half a dozen pictures of cars - usually cabs - making U-turns directly in front of signs prohibiting it, and directly across people on bikes using the lanes. I guess technically one could argue the signs only apply to small sections of the road that follow the sign, but as I understand it that's not true AND it would only matter if MPD started enforcing some of the laws protecting bike infrastructure.

In the meantime, I find I'm happier when I actively avoid bike lanes in DC.

[Richard Layman]

While riding to the convention center on Sunday, in the bike lane on Kansas Ave. NW, there were three cars parked in the bike lane adjacent to a church. Had I seen a police car on my travels, I would have reported it.

I have no problem with cars double parking for church as part of a transpo management plan (which DC doesn't require for churches), but not if it means blocking a bike lane.

[Dr Pangloss]

In the meantime, I find I'm happier when I actively avoid bike lanes in DC.

Heh. Just to answer the question "Why do some cyclists roll stop signs and treat red lights as yields?":

I rode from the White House to the Capitol on the new Penn Ave bike lanes a week or two ago. Took me about 15 min.

I did the same stretch in the right-hand traffic lane the other day. Took me about 5 min. Plus I'm pretty sure I was safer.

:)