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Here's Where Police Issue Bike Lane Parking Tickets in Logan Square

By Paul Biasco | January 22, 2016 6:24am
 A heat map of where police have ticketed cars for illegally parking in the bike lane.
A heat map of where police have ticketed cars for illegally parking in the bike lane.
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DNAinfo

LOGAN SQUARE — In the battle of bikers versus cars, seeing a car ticketed for illegally parking in a bike lane can give a taste of sweet revenge for cyclists.

Although the bike lane tickets are just a tiny portion of total parking tickets, according to data obtained by DNAinfo Chicago, there are a few stretches in Logan Square and Humboldt Park that have been hot spots for tickets.

The stretch of road where the most cars were ticketed for illegally parking in the bike lane was unsurprisingly Milwaukee Avenue, a major bike route.

Between the 2000 block and 2800 blocks of North Milwaukee Avenue, police issued 33 tickets for parking in the bike lane between December 2010 and December 2015.

That equates to about one ticket every two months.

The street with the second highest total of tickets during that time period was West Division between the 2400 and 2800 blocks, with 15 tickets.

The city issued 13 tickets for cars parked illegally between the 1000 and 2000 blocks of North California Avenue and 12 for cars parked between the 2600 and 2800 blocks of North Kedzie.

In 2015 the city issued 2,473 tickets for illegally parking in bike lanes, which carries a $150 fine. That number was a bit higher than 2014's total of 2,331.

In 2011 the city issued just 1,115 tickets for the same offense, according to data.

2015's total equates to about 1 in every 1,250 parking tickets in Chicago.

The city issued more than 12.2 million parking tickets between December 2010 and December 2015.

"Is it just organic, logical growth, or is it because [the city] is truly enforcing more?" said Yasmeen Schuller, president and owner of The Chainlink, which recently called on cyclists to submit photos and videos of vehicles parked in bike lanes. "These aren't huge numbers if you think about how big the city of Chicago is."

Since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office in 2011, the city has added 106 miles of buffered or protected bike lanes, which brings the city's total up to 292 miles, according to Mike Claffey, a spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation.

According to Claffey, the increase in the number of tickets is due to the city stepping up efforts to keep bike lanes "free of parked and stopped vehicles, both through education and enforcement."

While Schuller said she's glad to see "some sort of enforcement," she thinks roughly 200 tickets a month across nearly 300 miles of bike lanes is not enough.

"That doesn't sound like full coverage," she said. "I keep hearing that there are so many more cars out there, and I've physically seen them. What's the plan for when they more than double the miles of bike lanes in the next four years?"

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