A Toronto resident was happy to see the addition of new bike lanes to their city — until drivers immediately began parking in them, rendering them essentially unusable.
"They narrowed this bit of the road, expanded the sidewalks, but really dropped the ball with these bike lanes," they wrote in a Reddit post.
In the photo they included, two FedEx vans are parked opposite each other, blocking the entirety of both bike lanes, forcing cyclists to either swerve into the road or dismount and walk on the sidewalk.
OP pointed out the irony of the situation, writing, "Brand new bike 'lanes' instantly blocked in both directions by delivery vans from the same company."
Commenters were frustrated by the inadequacy of the bike lanes and by the behavior of the drivers. "Start towing the delivery vehicles," one person said.
Another vented, "It's not an either-or choice between a world with safe bike lanes and a world with package deliveries. In fact — and stop me if this sounds crazy — sometimes packages are even delivered by bike."
And while not every delivery could be conducted by bike, there was further context for this particular scenario that made the vans' parking choices even more infuriating.
"The building on the right has multiple large dedicated loading zones which are off this street. There was also available street parking that it could have used behind that front loader," OP explained, "The truck on the left was probably delivering to a residential building, he could very easily have used the street parking on the right and walked across."
And while the painted bike lanes are designed to discourage parking like this, one person pointed out that "paint is not infrastructure." For a more proactive solution, many people instead suggested protected lanes. "Make it too difficult to do," one said.
Although these lanes are clearly not an end-all-be-all solution, some people did acknowledge that there is a positive aspect to them. "There is a positive feedback loop," one wrote. "More bike lanes (even weak ones) mean more cyclists, and more cyclists mean more (and stronger) bike lanes are needed. So the growth in both can be truly exponential (for a while)."
And in some cities, traffic enforcement is cracking down on cars that park in bike lanes, giving cyclists reason to hope for a safer future.
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