27 Calls to Police, One Vehicle Ticketed: Why Our Bike Lanes Are Blocked

Blocked Bike Lanes:

Emeryville Doesn't Care About Bike Safety

A Combination of Lax Enforcement and Low Fines is a Recipe For Injured/Killed Bicyclists

News Analysis

Amid a growing prevalence of bike lane blockages and in response to a Tattler public records request, the Emeryville Police Department recently released citizen complaint driven data on vehicles illegally blocking the city’s bike lanes and the Department’s enforcement management to address the problem.  The numbers revealed show a city beset with dangerous bike lane blockages and a disinterested police department.

Over the six month period from March 1st to September 30th, a total of 27 citizen calls were placed to the police department complaining of vehicles blocking bike lanes resulting in one citation issued.  The lack of enforcement combined with the low cost to drivers for the infraction, $59 as we reported last August, puts bicyclists in the precarious position of having to cross the solid white line and swerve out into traffic, a move that has been identified by bike safety groups and the insurance industry as extremely dangerous.

Will Emeryville wait for a bicyclist to be killed
or severely injured before action is taken?

Twenty seven calls and one ticket written; those are the kinds of odds that make people willing to break the law.  That’s nearly the same odds as being dealt a first hand flush in seven card poker.  And that’s calculated only for the cars that receive citizen complaints.  If nobody calls the police to complain about your illegally parked car, a likely thing, your odds of getting a ticket for blocking a bike lane drop to something much lower than one in 27. 

This information reveals an Emeryville Police Department that places bike safety very low on its list of priorities.  By definition.

Vehicles blocking bike lanes isn’t relegated only to Emeryville of course.  In fact there’s a growing social movement to stop the dangerous practice.  Many cities are responding to the calls by increasing the fines and increasing patrolling for violators, as Chicago did in 2017.  In 2018 in Virginia and Maryland tickets for blocking bike lanes averaged over $220 and $260, respectively.  In Emeryville however, no such concern for bike safety exists and the deadly combination of low fines with lax enforcement spells future calamity.  

Police Department Purposely Doesn't Cite Violators

An Emeryville Police Department employee, wishing anonymity, told the Tattler he doesn’t see the dearth of tickets issued as a sign the Department isn’t taking bike safety seriously.  Upon learning that the public records request information was going to be made public by the Tattler, the police employee used a classic appeal from ignorance fallacy, stating, “The fact that we didn’t ticket these violators shows that we value bike safety.  These violators were asked to move along, solving the problem of the [bike] lanes being blocked.”  He added, “The priority is to get the vehicle out of the bike lane”.  Taking him at his word, none of this acknowledges the fact that drivers are typically not in the vehicles that are blocking the lanes and the obvious fact that police asking drivers to move is not solving the problem that parking in the bike lane is a good solution for drivers (especially if there aren’t any police visible).  

If police asking drivers to not park in bike lanes (without writing tickets) were having a palliative effect on bike lane blockage in Emeryville, there would tend to be fewer vehicles blocking bike lanes over time.  What we’ve seen is the opposite.  Indeed, to expect that issuing a ticket would not have a deterrent effect is to overturn the most basic precept upon which the whole paradigm of crime and punishment is based.  Bike lane blocking drivers that don’t have a moral compass and can’t seem to see the havoc they cause and the recklessness of putting bikers’ lives at risk will find the havoc on their bank account after they get a ticket for doing so.  

If Emeryville starts taking bike safety more seriously, fewer drivers will block our bike lanes and bikers will be safer.  As it stands now, drivers have a better than 96% chance they won’t get a ticket for blocking a bike lane and a $59 fine if they are among the unlucky 3% that do get a ticket.  The remedy for Emeryville is easy but so far the will is lacking.