Have you ever ridden eastbound on 20th street ...

Submitted by refutalisk t3_11gzq4k in baltimore

... and not seen people parked the wrong way in the bike lane, or driving the wrong way in the bike lane? I have seen it clear & usable, but only about 10% of the time. TBH I'm mad about that, but I want to be constructive, so if this is also a problem for other people, maybe u/BmoreCityDOT could consider solutions:
- move the bike lane 6-8 feet south, inside the (legally) parked cars
- random or regular enforcement in that specific spot
- let people upload photos to 311 to prove a certain set of tags is illegally parked. You can already report it but I think photos are important because otherwise anyone can claim to see any car anywhere so those reports need to be individually verified.
- <your idea here>

I think enforcement is important because there is a collective decision-making process for whether something should be free public parking or not, and it shouldn't be overridden by a small number of people with large vehicles asserting might-makes-right. But, enforcement needs to be done in a way that is fair and incorporates due process. Let me know if you have ever ridden here, what you experienced, and what you think of these options.

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bmore t1_jar0oap wrote

The same 4 cars always block the crosswalks and curb ramps there, directly in front of a senior tower. Half the time they don't even have tags on them. I don't understand why DOT doesn't just tow them.

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refutalisk OP t1_jar2vi4 wrote

I tend to see different cars each time and usually with license plates. I assumed it would be harder to combat since it's many rotating illegal parkers, rather than a few sitting long-term. Maybe we're talking about different places? Or maybe usage depends on the time of day?

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bmore t1_jar6y9b wrote

Next time you go by look at the intersection right at Maryland. There are almost always 3 cars: an illegally parked tow truck, and a red Lexus and a black car blocking crosswalks. All three rotate different plates or have no plates depending on the day. There's a 4th Volkswagen that normally parks by the hydrant or the other no stopping zone.

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refutalisk OP t1_jar8x8r wrote

oh interesting. I will keep an eye out for that.

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moderndukes t1_jau1h9f wrote

Submit it to 311 on the app with pictures. It alerts DOT and they might also ticket even if they move with such evidence.

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bmore t1_jauiwtt wrote

79 311 requests and 0 citations over 1.5 years.

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moderndukes t1_jaukxjx wrote

That makes zero sense from personal experience of seeing cars get ticketed that I’ve reported. Maybe that’s just for you.

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dopkick t1_jarbuj1 wrote

Introduce a bounty program. If you’re the first 3 to report a car illegally parked in a bike lane you get an award when it is ticketed. Award like $10 to first, $7 to second, and $3 to third. Then raise the cost of the violation by $20. People would go nuts hunting for these cars.

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refutalisk OP t1_jarib5m wrote

I would be a little concerned about creating incentives that could be abused. To me, getting the car out of the bike lane is its own reward.

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dopkick t1_jarj6yl wrote

Pretty sure DC is doing this and it seems to not be a big deal.

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refutalisk OP t1_jark5a3 wrote

Oh, that's really interesting. Thanks for sharing.

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MotoSlashSix t1_jas8v56 wrote

Request to add my enforcement idea: after your car gets towed/ticketed for multiple blocking a bike lane violations, you get a loaner bike to commute with for x months until your car comes out of impound. You get the car out of impound at No or reduced cost when you return the bike in good condition.

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ThisAmericanSatire t1_jat0beo wrote

The bounty is meaningless if nobody actually shows up to ticket/tow.

I currently report for free, and will continue to do so, but it would be nice if enforcement actually showed up immediately and issued tickets.

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crystalli0 t1_jaqzp6p wrote

I lived in another city where some sections of bike lane were inside the street parking area and separated by a small concrete curb. It mostly worked to keep the bike lane clear, but occasionally you'd see a car parked in the bike lane instead of parking. I think that was mainly confusion because it wasn't marked super well. If you're new to the city and there aren't any cars parked already to show where the parking is I could see someone being confused about where to park.

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refutalisk OP t1_jaqzzy1 wrote

That makes sense, but on 20th, there's already a row of parking inside the bike lane. It's very unusual in Baltimore to have two side-by-side lanes of parking with one boxed in against the sidewalk by the other. I don't think people would mistake this for that.

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okdiluted t1_jas99wj wrote

omg yeah concrete bollards or something that can't be driven through please, i've literally never been able to use this bike lane bc there's always at least one car just chilling there

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refutalisk OP t1_jasfvy0 wrote

This is a nice alternative and it is especially appealing because it skips all the rigamarole of violation and enforcement and doesn't require continuous labor from the city. Thanks.

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okdiluted t1_jasx3mt wrote

i will scream about how concrete bollards should be the bare minimum for a protected lane any day, love concrete bollards

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orlitzky t1_jas5as4 wrote

> move the bike lane 6-8 feet south, inside the (legally) parked cars

Please don't recommend this in Baltimore. It works in nice places, but here they will half-ass it and make things worse. The implementation that this idea is based off of can be found throughout Europe has two important factors:

  1. The "inside" bike lane is separated from the cars by an actual barrier.
  2. They clean the bike lane.

These cost money, however, so in Baltimore we skip them and keep only the easy parts of the plan.

Without #2, the bike lane is literally a gutter, where tree limbs, broken bottles, needles, and chicken bones collect. You can't ride in a month after they build it.

Without #1, people just park right next to the bike lane (on top of the painted lines or plastic bollards). This makes an "inside" bike lane far more dangerous than an "outside" bike lane. If someone opens the door on you while you're in an "inside" bike lane, you have two choices: hit the curb and die, or hit the car and die. If someone opens the door on you in an "outside" bike lane, you have two choices: hit the car and die, or swerve into traffic and only maybe die. Your odds are greatly improved! This sounds sarcastic because of how terrible everything is but sadly I am serious.

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refutalisk OP t1_jasff7q wrote

Getting doored into traffic is way more dangerous than getting doored into a sidewalk. If you have data that suggest otherwise, I will back down on this point, because we ought to make these decisions based on the best available evidence. But the way I see it, the best available evidence would say sidewalk-side is better. For example, the wikipedia article on dooring says "[G]etting doored itself usually is not fatal; rather, most serious door-zone-related injuries are sustained by getting hit by a motor vehicle after colliding with or swerving to avoid the obstructing door. Thus, most dooring deaths and serious injuries occur in the travel lane and not in the door zone."

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bmore t1_jatr9yn wrote

While crashes tend to be slightly higher at intersections on our two way protected facilities because the city is too cowardly to ban left turns, serious injury and fatal crashes are worse on roads with standard or no facilities and ridership is also much higher on the separated infrastructure.

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orlitzky t1_jattctf wrote

Aside from the left-turn issue, two-way bike lanes are usually fine because you can swerve a little to avoid surprises there, too. I was specifically talking about the one-way lanes on the inside like the ones they had to bulldoze on Roland ave. I believe those stats.

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bmore t1_jauj1mk wrote

Roland ones sucked and were designed substandard to preserve car travel lanes. Check out Central Ave. That's the standard design for a real facility with one way in either direction.

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orlitzky t1_javmda5 wrote

No argument there, but Central took like seven years and deleted a vehicle lane. It's a little more ambitious than "move the bike lane 6-8 feet south."

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moderndukes t1_jau1yvu wrote

Wouldn’t putting both directions of bike traffic on the same side with a two-way bike like fix all of these issues? Because I’m presuming with the cleaning you mean streetsweeping which could theoretically occur on such a lane.

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orlitzky t1_jau5ayg wrote

tl;dr yes

There are different problems with the two-way lanes (people don't look for bike traffic coming from the "wrong" direction, for example), but they do solve many of the problems with the typical outside single-lanes. It would be much harder to say that either is definitively better.

(And I'd love to be wrong about this, but I don't think they sweep the double-lanes even where it would be feasible.)

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moderndukes t1_jau7mxf wrote

(It would be theoretically possible though, right? Since they’re designed to be wide enough for an emergency vehicle I believe?)

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orlitzky t1_javmk1g wrote

If there wasn't such a large gap between what's theoretically possible (easy, even) and what we wind up with, I would have just kept my mouth shut in the first place!

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zeroxicide t1_jartlm2 wrote

Or ride the the bike on the sidewalk ?

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bmore t1_jarxqsa wrote

That's illegal, just like this illegal parking.

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