MyBikeLane

Yes, christians are exempt from almost all parking laws on weekends here in DC. It's been that way for a long, long time. MPD and Parking Enforcement will flat-out refuse to ticket illegally parked vehicles within a few blocks of a church if they think the car belongs to a church-goer.

Riding up Vermont Avenue from Thomas Circle on my way home, I saw a long line of funeral cars double-parked in the oncoming bicycle lane. My first thought was that I wished I had my camera because I could take a picture of this travesty and send it to dc.mybikelane.com, which posts pictures of cars parking or standing in bicycle lanes. When I came abreast of the cars, however, I saw that each of them had a bright green sign on the dashboard with “FUNERAL” printed in big black letters. That seemed like a fair use of the bicycle lane and I quickly forgot about it as I rode into the three-day Labor Day weekend.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning and I see on both dc.mybikelane.com and Greater Greater Washington the same picture of a line of funeral cars blocking a bike lane. Oddly enough, it was a different funeral, although it was only a couple blocks away on 14th Street.

On the dc.mybikelane.com site, the photo was accompanied by,

Not one, not two or even three, but at least half a dozen drivers decided they had the right to take over the entire bike lane for a full block just because someone died.

Greater Greater Washington was only marginally more understanding:

While my condolences go to the family, that doesn’t constitute an exception to the rule against parking in the bike lane.

Come on. Did these guys think before they wrote? Or are they so far gone into protecting their rights that they have no understanding that extremism in support of anything is ugly and misguided?

Certainly those cars could block the bike lane for an hour or so “just because someone died.” And allowing cars in the funeral train to park in a line in front of the church rather than requiring them to individually park anywhere they could find a space seems like a nice, tangible way to offer “condolences” to the family.

Bike lanes are an important component of urban transportation. They offer some measure of protection to bicyclists who otherwise are left to the often not-so-tender mercies of motorists. But let’s have some perspective. We want cars to share the road with us. Every so often, in extenuating circumstances–LIKE WHEN SOMEONE HAS DIED–maybe we can share our bicycle lanes with them.

I absolutely disagree with dcbicyclist. A death may be an extenuating circumstance for a particular family, but it's by no means an exceptional event for a church or funeral home. There no reason they can't provide adequate parking for such frequent occasions.