Old 08-04-06, 01:36 PM
  #72  
Brian Ratliff
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Location: Near Portland, OR
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Originally Posted by randya
Bike lanes on SW B'way - Installed three to five years ago, I think.

Crackdown over? - Who knows. They have been occurring on Wednesdays at different locations one or more times a month.

Ticket spread - IMO, motorists are more clued in to behaving better when they see an official police vehicle, and many of the cyclists were ticketed for doing things they believed were legal, like riding to the left on a one-way or leaving the bike lane to avoid hazards or in preparation for a left turn. Furthermore, there's no way to tell if the numbers reported by the police are accurate. Three of my coworkers were ticketed on bicycles, which leads me to believe more tickets were issued to bicyclists than the police reported.
They must have been installed just after I stopped working downtown. Either that or I am blind and my memory is bad. I haven't ridden down Broadway for a while now.

Just out of curiosity, do you know what the various offenses were for cyclists? I cannot believe they are only handing out tickets for bike lane and equipment violations. As for riding on the left of one way streets, I think that is legal, unless perhaps, there is a bike lane.

I wonder if this is just to "compensate" in the eyes of the motoring public for what is percieved to be an overly friendly attitude towards bicyclists. The city has to play to all it's constituents, and they did say a few months ago that there would be a focus on traffic violations by cyclists in the future.

I guess I am having a hard time reading if these tickets are given properly or if they are just to harrass. If they are giving properly, I suppose we just suck it up and take it. Perhaps use this to refocus our legislative efforts along the way. If not, than this is something else entirely.
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