Daly City’s City Manager Says It’s Okay to Trash a Bike Lane

Patricia Martel, City Manager of Daly City, has this to say about garbage cans blocking bike lanes: “cyclists have to share the road with vehicles and waste cans [emphasis added] weekly.”

That’s right. The City Manager thinks it’s okay for homeowners to put their trash cans in a travel lane of a road–as long as that travel lane is for bikes, not cars.

In an urbanized environment we have to share the road with cyclists and cyclists have to share the road with vehicles and waste cans weekly

— PMartel@ICMAPastPres (@DalyCityManager) August 29, 2017

That was her full tweet in reply to complaints that the bike lane on Callan in Daly City was regularly obstructed by trash cans. Of course, it’s not okay, and if the cans were placed in the general-purpose lane, you can be sure they would be removed, as “Bayview Cyclist” points out in this reply:

CA Vehicle Code 21211(b). Look it up. Those cans are not sharing the bike lane. They’re illegally blocking it.

— The Bayview Cyclist (@BayviewCyclist) August 30, 2017

Here’s what 21211 says: “(b) No person may place or park any bicycle, vehicle, or any other object upon any bikeway or bicycle path or trail, as specified in subdivision (a), which impedes or blocks the normal and reasonable movement of any bicyclist unless the placement or parking is necessary for safe operation or is otherwise in compliance with the law.”

“It’s unfortunate that not everyone understands the law and the importance of keeping the bike lanes clear,” said Emma Shlaes, Policy Manager for the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition. Shlaes says it’s as much a problem of poor street design, meaning that specific areas should be carved out for garbage collection so that homeowners don’t make this mistake. “I hope Daly City takes this as a lesson that we need to make the streets open and available and safe for everyone.”

Meanwhile, Republic Services, which does garbage collection for Daly City, has clear instructions for homeowners on its website: “Set your carts at the curbside.” Streetsblog has a message out with them to try and determine if their truck drivers set the cans back down at curbside, or put them back on the bike lane if that’s where they found them; we’ll update this post accordingly.

UPDATE: A representative from Republic (he requested we not publish his name) called back and said their truck drivers should not be putting trash cans back in the bike lane, even if that’s where they found them. “One of my drivers isn’t following proper procedure … I’ll have a talk with the driver who services Callan and I’ll follow up.”

Streetsblog also left a message with Daly City’s Traffic Division officer, Sergeant Sheikh Hussain.

Last but not least, Streetsblog left a message yesterday with Martel’s office asking for clarification about her tweet and will also update this post if she replies. But Jason Castleberry, who jumped into the exchange on Twitter, seems to have summed it up nicely:

@DalyCityManager you really stepped in it on this one. What a shame. You really believe trash receptacles can legally belong in a bike lane?

— Jason Castleberry (@Veryberrysf) August 30, 2017