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PSA: My town's new bike lane got blocked by a delivery truck for the third time this month
Saw it again this morning. A big box truck parked right in the new protected lane on Maple Street. It's been three weeks since they painted it. The driver told me he 'needed to make his drop' and it would 'only be five minutes'. That's the problem. Every single 'five minutes' adds up and makes the lane useless. If we build infrastructure but don't enforce it, nothing changes. How do other cities actually keep these lanes clear for people?
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dixon.rose2mo agoMost Upvoted
I get what you're saying about enforcement, but sometimes that five minutes is all a driver has. My brother does deliveries and the parking rules can be impossible. If there's no loading zone on that block, where is he supposed to go? They painted the lane but didn't give people a real place to stop. Until they fix that, trucks will keep blocking it.
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simon_chen1mo ago
Hot take: Paint is not a plan.
Longer response: Build the loading zones first. Every time they add a bike lane without fixing the parking problem, they set everyone up to fail. The driver needs to deliver, the cyclist needs a clear lane, and the city just created a fight between them. Real change means designing the whole street, not just slapping down some green paint and hoping for the best. Enforcement is a band-aid for bad design.
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