City getting vigilant about illegally parked bikes; more bike corrals on the way

Pedestrians walk past a bike parked in a city planter on Thursday, June 22, 2017 outside Starbucks at the intersection of Seventh and Massachusetts streets. The city began tagging illegally parked bikes this week.

As more residents ride their bicycles downtown, city employees have been finding bikes locked to city light posts, trees and even in flowerbeds.

That’s one of the reasons the city began tagging illegally parked bicycles this week, and a city spokesman said at least 15 bikes were tagged with an educational “ticket” the first day.

“As the downtown landscape continues changing, people are habitually tying their bikes to things that are technically illegal,” said Porter Arneill, a city spokesman. “This is not trying to be punitive as much as just trying to raise consciousness and awareness and help people put their bikes in a safer and more convenient spot.”

Bicycles can’t be locked to trees, light posts, fire hydrants and traffic signs, or otherwise parked in a way that obstructs the sidewalk, according to city ordinance. Bikes can be locked to freestanding parking meters only if they aren’t in front of an accessible parking stall. That excludes meters that are also light posts, meaning most of the meters along Massachusetts Street cannot be used for bike parking, according to Senior Transportation Planner Jessica Mortinger.

The tag provides information about the city’s bike parking rules with a map designating legal parking areas in the downtown area. The map includes bike racks as well as bike corrals, which are located within city parking stalls. The city also has “meter ovals” — a metal ring on the post — on parking meters where bicycle parking is preferred.

Currently, there are about 400 bike parking spaces downtown, Mortinger said. That includes three bike corrals, which were added as part a city program approved last year. Some funding is still available from the LiveWell Community Wellness Grant that funded the program, and the addition of 30 more bicycle parking spaces has since been approved.

Mortinger said that as residential density increases downtown, there has been more demand for secure bicycle parking, which allows use of a U-lock as opposed to a coil or chain that can be cut. Mortinger also said having corrals along the roadway is in line with the city’s code that bans bicycles from riding on sidewalks downtown.

“So basically the argument with Bicycle Advisory Committee is bike corrals encourage people to recognize that bicycles are transportation and that they park in a space on the roadway where they should be operating,” Mortinger said.

The 30 additional bike spaces will be added in four locations sometime this summer, Mortinger said. She said two of the corrals will be added in parking stalls along Massachusetts Street, and the other two will be along the roadway on New Hampshire Street in areas where vehicle parking isn’t currently allowed.

Arneill said city parks and recreation employees have been tagging illegally parked bicycles as they go about their duties of replacing sidewalk pavers, watering trees or maintaining city planters. Though not a citation, the tag also includes a warning that illegally parked bicycles can be removed and stored by the Lawrence Police Department.

Arneill said the city is printing more of the tags, after running out from tagging and handing them out as fliers. He said the city has no plans to ticket or assess fines for illegally parked bicycles, but that it wants people to be aware that the police can confiscate bikes that have been left locked up for long periods of time.

“It becomes something of an eyesore, so this gives us some sort of recourse to potentially clean up the public right-of-way when it’s clear that a bike has been absolutely abandoned,” Arneill said.