Dude, Where's My Bike Lane?

Dude, where's my bike lane?
Originally uploaded by Snak Shak

I conducted a stealthy, black-ops reconnaissance mission this morning (and by "stealthy, black-ops" I mean that I didn't tell anyone about it and I was not paid) in order to ground-truth a group ride route I am planning for a few friends (more to come on that front).

During my self-propelled mission, I chanced upon the mother of all bike lane parking violations. This is located at 26th Ave. No., just immediately west of 2nd Ave. No. in North Minneapolis. I saw at least 6, and probably 7 cars parked in the bike lane.

What the hell?

The problem here is the signage - the illegible sign in this photo prohibits overnight parking. My sense is that drivers are hard-wired to look for the red signs and that they don't pay attention to the black and white ones. You see that "No Overnight Parking" sign think it's okay to park here. I get that, but it's wrong, wrong, wrong.

My assumption is that the signs pre-dated the bike lane, and when the lane got striped, nobody told the actual do-ers on this project to take down the old parking signs and install "No Parking" signs.

We'll see if Minneapolis 311 can rectify this problem before October 8.