Lexington will begin fining drivers who park in bike lanes starting later this month.
In August, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council passed an ordinance that prohibits drivers from parking in the city’s bike lanes. A ticket carries a $50 fine, though there are exceptions for emergency and police vehicles.
The ordinance also doesn’t apply to bike lanes along Georgetown Street, which is owned by the state.
“Cyclists have been telling us for years that bike lanes on busy streets don't work if vehicles are constantly parking in them or blocking them,” council member and ordinance co-sponsor Tom Eblen said Tuesday. “Those obstructions force cyclists into the main traffic lane at unexpected moments, creating a safety hazard for them and for drivers who must react to them.”
The ban is being enforced downtown by LexPark, the city’s traffic enforcement agency, and elsewhere by the Lexington Police Department. The city can also tow vehicles it deems a public safety concern.
The recommendation came from the city’s STREEET Safety Task Force, which was organized last year to find ways to improve roadway safety. According to the city, there were 1,752 collisions with injuries and 41 collisions with fatalities last year.
Council member Dave Sevigny, another co-sponsor of the ordinance, said the bike lane parking ban was crafted in response to feedback from cyclists. The ordinance’s online engagement page received around 300 comments.
“You’ve got to take little bite-sized pieces of the whale, you know. So these are just little bite-sized pieces that we're taking with the STREEET Safety Task Force,” he said. “We got tons of feedback from bicyclists in different parts of town that just were saying, ‘This is bad, this is bad, this is bad, ’and this was one that we felt like we could actually try to take care of.”
Eblen said much enforcement is likely to be in response to complaints and asked residents to report violations.
The ordinance only applies to Lexington’s designated bike lanes, which have a white stripe on the side of the street and the image of a cyclist painted on the pavement.
Parking enforcement and police are currently handing out warnings to drivers parked in bike lanes. The full ordinance will take effect Sept. 27.
“This ordinance isn't perfect, and it won't solve all of the conflicts that happen between cyclists and motorists. But the less often cyclists must move out of a blocked bike lane and into traffic, the safer Lexington streets will be,” Eblen said.
