It's not super clear in this photo, but the lines for the bike lane run right under this car. You can kind of see them extend out in the distance.

I'm iffy on the first 2-3 letters of the license plate.

C'mon, please try even a little bit to get out of the bike lane.

Try "acute angle parking"? In any case, you're encroaching into the bike lane.

I hate shoveling as much as the next guy, but if there's a pile of snow along the curb, you shouldn't really be occupying travel lanes, including bike lanes. Especially not two weeks after the snow fell.

The owner of this car has successfully illegally reserved his or her parking space with a classic Pittsburgh parking chair, and is now just as successfully, just as illegally blocking the bike lane with the same chair.

I'm 90% but not 100% sure that characters 2-4 of the license plate are FF-1.

I don't know about coloring within the lines, but this driver can't seem to park within them.

Not the most egregious bike lane violator, but this is pretty significantly over the line.

Coming up from CMU, I spotted this UPS truck making a delivery to a house on Forbes Avenue and rode up to a CMU police officer to mention the truck being illegally parked. "That's a 911 issue. Call 911 to report it," he told me.

By the time I got moving eastbound again, the UPS truck had started up again, and I thought I'd missed the chance. But no! He had another delivery to make, and another stretch of the bike lane to block, and drove just a block farther up before finally absenting the bike lane.

The flashed-out sign on the far right is a "No Parking" sign, and the bike lane is clearly marked. If this violator had parked just a few yards back, he or she would have been in the clear, but chose not to.

After making a stink here and on flickr concerning various news vans parking on the Eliza Furnace Trail, the news vans started parking near but off the trail. Apparenty Channel 11 forgot the lesson and here van #5 (PA YPF-0659) is parked squarely in front of a "No Parking" sign, between the bike trail borders and on top of the bike lane symbol.

The news guy in the passenger seat, typing on his PDA, either didn't notice or didn't care that I was snooping around his van taking pictures. Flash and all.

This one's a two-fer. On the left is a silver Ford Escape XLT (PA EVJ-8046) siting squarely in front of a "No Parking" sign and squarely between the lines of the end of the South Side Trail.

Same TV station. Same van. Same place. Different day. Here is Unit 80 of the KDKA news team set up again right in the middle of the Eliza Furnace Trail when they could have moved 10 feet in any of a number of directions and not been in the way. Couldn't tell who the reporter was loitering in the passenger seat, waiting for the time to go his shpiel in with the Pittsburgh Municipal Courts as the backdrop, but we wafed to me after seeing my take a picture of the van and ride by.

Next time I think I'll go up to them and remind them that motorized vehicles are not permitted on the trail.

I've actually seen a news van parked here on several occasions. On this one, KDKA TV Unit 80 was blocking the trail when they could have moved 10 feet in any of a number of directions and not done so. The cameraman was in the back while newscaster Bob Allen (I assume, because the KDKA website indicates Bob is the only black male working the morning shift) was dozing in the passenger seat.

PA YMV-5092
06:22 24 April 2008

I don't ride over to the South Side very often but every time I do, there is invariably a bike lane parking moron parked at the end of the South Side trail near the cement plant. In this case, in addition to the Toyota Land Cruiser parked right in the bike lane, there were two other cars parked in the "No Parking" zone. Ironically, there are three "No Parking" signs, one for each vehicle.

16:46, 31 March 2008

A Red Chevy Equinox L5 parked at the end of the South Side Trail when it connects with 4th Street. Again, 50 feet away there is plenty of parking available. It's permit parking but it strikes me that the parking is for the nearby business that this "guest" is visiting.

16:45 10 October 2007

This red Chevy S-10 Blazer is sitting right in the middle of the South Side bike trail as it exits onto the end of South 4th Street before crossing the railroad tracks. There are plenty of opportunities to park further east (in fact, there is a parking lot specifically for that purpose not 50 feet away).

4:51pm, 5 October 2007

Pittsburgh doesn't have much in the way of bike lanes, though that is beginning to change. I didn't want to have this site be completely empty so I'm posting a photo of this Mazda 3 blocking the end of the Panther Hollow Trail in Oakland.

First off, there was the sign a few hundred feet back that said that this was a private driveway and there was no parking. Next, it was a closed gate, which should give someone a clue that maybe they shouldn't park there. Third, it's a bike trail so there are going to be plenty of bicycles going by. Why park almost directly in the way of where the traffic is going to be moving when, if you still want to be a moron, you can park a yard or two to the left and at least keep your pretty car away from the potential for dings and scratches?

All that being said, some offended cyclist had left a huge spitwad on the passenger window to show his displeasure. This sort of behavior only compounds the situation. The parking pinhead will feel justified in causing trouble for "those damn cyclists."