There’s something rotten about the bike lanes in San Jose’s Hensley district. Every Monday morning the hard-won, lovely wide bike lanes are taken over by garbage bins. City of San Jose, please clean up your act! The comfort and safety of people riding bikes should rate higher than what you send off to the dump.
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- On 3rd Street in San Jose, some residents politely keep their garbage out of the bike lane.
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- Not all their neighbors are considerate, even when there’s room in the parking zone.
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- Sigh. The other side of the street wasn’t any better. Garbage day means bike lanes that stink in San Jose.
Location: N 3rd Street near E Empire Street, San Jose, California, USA.
wellsuitedforlife
November 19, 2013 at 3:08 pm
It’s not just mornings, I ride back through that area after 8pm to get to downtown and still have cans ritualistically blocking my way.
ladyfleur
November 19, 2013 at 11:05 pm
Sounds like people either get home late or aren’t in any big rush to put away their bins.
Easy
November 19, 2013 at 3:14 pm
In SF we get notes on our bins when we put the wrong thing in them.
I wonder if the collectors could be convinced to leave notes on bins that are left in the wrong place.
wellsuitedforlife
November 19, 2013 at 3:36 pm
As I recall from my decade in Santa Cruz they won’t pick up bins in the wrong place or with the wrong things in them. I found this out the hard way when my neighbors used our recycling for trash and trash for recycling one week and we had to scramble to fit two weeks worth in the next week. Some people just don’t know what goes where, others just don’t care.
ladyfleur
November 19, 2013 at 11:05 pm
Given the number of bins in the bike lane, the collectors would be very very busy.
labicichica
November 19, 2013 at 3:36 pm
How about CARS in bike lanes? Most local bike lanes are unusable because they’re in the door zone (in the area where the door opens (about four feet out from car)). Thanks for bringing up this issue!
ladyfleur
November 19, 2013 at 11:09 pm
The bike lanes that are set up to be in the door zone are a pet peeve of mine. I rarely ride on California St or Rengstorff in MV for that reason.
gasstationwithoutpumps
November 19, 2013 at 4:25 pm
Santa Cruz also has problems with trash bins in the bike lines, particularly on Walnut and on Bay. Even if the residents are good about keeping the bins at the curb, the trash truck drivers often leave the bins out by the bike lane stripe.
HackyDacky
November 19, 2013 at 7:33 pm
You would have been able to take the same picture today (Tuesday) on northbound 11th Street. Just a nuisance when I passed, around 3:00 pm, but I was thinking, it could be a real hazard after 5:00 pm when it starts getting dark.
On the plus side, though, are the newly painted green lanes on San Fernando heading from Diridon towards downtown.
ladyfleur
November 19, 2013 at 11:10 pm
I need to remember to check out the green lanes on San Fernando. I exit the Caltrain station on the other side so I missed out on it completely.