Hey @mbta, why is every single bike in the Alewife cages ticketed for removal? My bike is not abando

[ursamajor]

post-tags: instagram, crosspost Hey @mbta, why is every single bike in the Alewife cages ticketed for removal? My bike is not abandoned; it's been here 6 hours.

Comments

[amaebi]

How odd. Some administrative or law enforcement person thinking in terms of efficiency and tidiness, not property rights? "As long as I was there I thought I'd make a clean sweep."

Or perhaps this is an abandonment detection device.

[ursamajor]

I'm willing to bet a not-well-thought-through administrative sweep. There are several actually-abandoned bikes hanging out both in the bike cages and out on the open racks, but the vast majority of spaces turn over every day around the morning and evening rush, with the vacating rate slower in the evening than the fill rate in the morning, as people stay in town to have drinks with coworkers or go see a game. And I see tons of hospital shift workers coming home in the morning after their overnights at our numerous medical facilities - the odds that at least a standard proportion of them do the bike+train commute are good.

To actually figure out which bikes are abandoned, though, you'd need to analyze the footage. There are definitely some bikes I see parked in the exact same spots every day, but many of them I've also seen being unlocked and taken home by their riders - they just arrive at the cage/racks early enough that they get their preferred spot. There are definitely better and worse spots - for instance, I can't lift my bike up to the second level racks, and they don't pull down like the smart Dutch ones, so those aren't even an option for me. And about 50% of the ground-level slots that go under the second-level racks are actually *not tall enough for my bike*, because they angle up to try to fit more bikes in a skinnier space and minimize handlebar conflicts. Not tall enough for my bike, despite me being more than one standard deviation below average height for an American woman. So my actual space options tend to be the single-level U racks. And of those, I've got preferred ones as well - some of them intersect unfortunately with wide concrete bollards that support the cage poles (like shown in the pic), which make it impossible to pull my bike far enough forward to stick the U-lock through both the rack and the rear wheel. Sometimes, I can back into a space and secure it that way, but more often than not, it's generally too crowded around spaces to squish the back half of my bike in far enough to access the rack for proper locking. (Which is why they're opening a third cage - there's more than enough demand! Now if they'd just hurry up and put an *alarm* on that cage, I'd start using it ...)

But yeah, in terms of figuring out which bikes are actually abandoned? You'd need to analyze at least a week's worth of pictures, and those photos would need to be taken multiple times daily - you can't just assume that every bike left after 6 pm on a Thursday is abandoned and ticket them thus. Or, at the very least, they need to look at the cages and racks at least half an hour after the station *and everything else in a quarter mile radius* has closed. Take a pic during those hours across a two week span. Bikes that don't move at all are more likely to be truly abandoned, though still not a 100% guarantee.

[anirt.livejournal.com]

I never thought of footage! When I've seen abandoned bikes tagged in Chicago, for example in front of the cultural center downtown near the lake, it was always clear-cut: totally rusted from the winter, flat tires, missing bike parts. Sometimes there's just a lonely frame lying on the ground somehow still locked to the rack. I know there's surveillance cams everywhere in the city, but I don't know that there are any specifically aimed at bike racks.

[ursamajor]

I believe the MBTA bike cages have security cameras, so I'm making the charitable assumption that there *is* footage to pull :) ... and hey, while I go looking for confirmation that the bike cages have security cameras (they do), have an explanation:

Alewife Parking Congestion: Due to the lack of bike parking spaces at Alewife Station, the MBTA will be tagging bikes that are left overnight. After 14 days, the MBTA will remove tagged bikes. ... If your bicycle has been tagged for removal and is not abandoned, just remove the tag. You can continue to park your bicycle in the facility.

Now IF ONLY THE TICKETS ACTUALLY EXPLAINED THIS.

Still, it delights me that biking to the subway has become popular enough that not only are they opening a third cage, larger than the other two, they feel the need to make a special announcement about their efforts to keep bike parking spaces free for those who need them. Now if only things looked a little more like this. Or this, where they have sensors to tell you how many spaces are free in each section - and which can also tell the parking lot owners how long a given bike has been there, and to start charging beyond a 24/48/72 hour limit (though I think that's actually shown more in the first video).

[scribblesinink]

I think this is the system to determine which bikes are abandoned. There's a date on the tag, right? So if the bike is still there with the tag on it in 14 days' time? Abandoned! And they can remove it.

[ursamajor]

Huh, I hadn't thought of it that way, but that makes sense. If that's the case, though, I wish the tag actually explained it that way! With it saying "Violation noted: bicycle is abandoned and will be removed after 14 days," it makes it sound like we're already in trouble for committing a violation when that's not actually the case.

I wasn't the only one confused by this - a couple of other people entered the cage to pick up their bikes at the same time I did and were equally "WTF?" about it. Bad user experience, MBTA!