Sometimes I won't use a bike lane because it is poorly-conceived, -built or -maintained. Other times, as is often the case on the Queensborough-59th Street Bridge lane, it's simply too narrow and crowded, especially with ebikes and motorized scooters. Or the lane may simply not go in the direction I need to go--or doesn't go anywhere at all.
I've mentioned those reasons in other post, along with the fact that some drivers park or pass--sometimes out of spite--in the lanes. Also, cops often plant their patrol cars in them as they're taking breaks.
There's another reason that I don't believe I've mentioned: debris and obstacles, sometimes deliberately placed. They range from broken bottles, tacks and nails to bricks, cinderblocks and larger objects. Lately, someone built an actual wall across a bike lane in Portland, Oregon.
No one is sure of who built it, but some have observed that its architect and constructers must have been "amateurs." While that could have made the structure even more hazardous than it could have been, it made the barrier easier to take apart.
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| Remnants of the wall built across the N Concord bike path in Portland. (Photo by Jonathan Maus) |
There is another interesting twist to this story, though. In Portland, relationships between cyclists and non-cyclists are as contentious as they are in other place in the US. But the wall's construction may have had little or nothing to do with antipathy toward cyclists. Rather, it seems to have been placed to block a passage that connects two parts of the Overbrook neighborhood. Homeowners live on one side; homeless encampments stand on the other.
So...The construction of the wall may have been illustrative of just how politicized not only the United States, but local communities, have become. While the target may have been homeless people, but cyclists became collateral damage, if you will, whether or not that was the wall builder's (or builders') intention.
