Blocks of Midtown bike lanes debut; quickly mistaken by drivers for long parking spaces (Atlanta: apartments)

[LynnHarris1]

Let’s say you’ve just finished some Christmas shopping in Buckhead, and while riding shotgun, you notice fresh bike lanes that have been implemented along ever-changing Spring Street in Midtown.

All’s well until you see a Honda parked in the middle of the bicycle lane. Then a delivery truck. And another..."

https://urbanize.city/atlanta/post/m...on-development

SOURCE: Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta (former editor at Curbed Atlanta)

[ATLTJL]

I think pulling to the far right is a natural temporary parking reflex.

Those trucks are used to taking up a lane of traffic to park to make deliveries, etc.

So... I can see why they would not know what to do. What should they do? Park in the right traffic lane and leave the bike lane to their right clear? Then it looks like they are just stopping in the middle of the road.

Personally.... I don't think anyone, even Uber drivers, should be able to stop temporarily in traffic lanes. It's not hard to go to the nearest parking lot/pull off area.

[Gulch]

These lanes need to have concrete curb barriers.

[bellhead]

Originally Posted by LynnHarris1

Let’s say you’ve just finished some Christmas shopping in Buckhead, and while riding shotgun, you notice fresh bike lanes that have been implemented along ever-changing Spring Street in Midtown.

All’s well until you see a Honda parked in the middle of the bicycle lane. Then a delivery truck. And another..."

https://urbanize.city/atlanta/post/m...on-development

SOURCE: Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta (former editor at Curbed Atlanta)

About the only solution is an over zealous towing program, in 3 months stories will get shared & people wil no longer park in bike lanes as they are afraid to get towed. For Delivery drivers it's the only solution.

Going forward should all apartments & office buildings be required to have temp. parking via a circular driveway?

[ATLTJL]

The problem is, tow trucks would never be able to get to cars/trucks in the one or two minutes they are there to do whatever they are doing.

The only towing solution would be roam towing. And if you've ever lived anywhere that allows roam towing, you know it's a massive can of worms that pretty much everybody hates.

I do think that any new construction in urban areas should probably be forced to allow some sort of pull-off area for delivery trucks, etc. They really should have thought of this before putting the bike lanes there and figured out some other solution.

[MattCW]

It seems, like most things in CoA, this wasn't well thought out. Make it clear, then you can talk about proper enforcement.

[LTCM]

Does coa regularly tow delivery services temp parked in roadways during their normal course of business?

If no, they have no leg to stand on if they want to tow them in bike lanes.

[demonta4]

“As you’ve seen, cars and trucks are ignoring the striping and parking in the bike lane because the flex posts and wheel stops have not been installed,” Hourigan says. “Unfortunately, the timeline for completing this work is hard to pin down as the lane striping—the next thing that has to happen—is heavily dependent on warmer, dryer weather.”

They literally aren’t done with the lanes yet. Yes, I wish they’d do everything at once and much more but this is what Midtown can do in the meantime and eventually the cars will be out the bike lane. We still need better traffic enforcement across the entire city but we should also design our roads in the core around pedestrians instead of suburban commuters.