City agrees to forgive first wave of tickets for parking in bike lane buffers
When Richmond has made recent changes to road safety enforcement, there’s usually a monthlong warning period before people get slapped with real rickets.
That wasn’t the case with a recent expansion of no-parking rules for the city’s bike lanes that put a lot more vehicles at risk of being ticketed for careless park jobs.
Because of the lack of warning, the city has agreed to stop issuing tickets for the rest of May to cars parking in the buffer zones meant to separate bike lanes from the regular flow of traffic. Any tickets issued so far will be forgiven, according to the city, and anyone who has already paid a $65 ticket can get a refund.
“After hearing resident confusion and acknowledging a lack of warning period, the City of Richmond will now pause ticketing drivers for parking in the bike-lane buffer,” officials said in a news release Friday morning. “Ticketing will resume June 1.”
The city asked anyone with a pending ticket to fill out a parking citation review form. Those who have already paid one of the tickets can call 804-646-3684 to request a refund.
Because the city did issue warnings in April about not parking directly in the bike lane itself, ticketing for those violations will continue and won’t be subject to the pause.
“If drivers park in the bike lane today, they will be ticketed,” the city’s release said.
The move comes after pushback from some West End residents and City Councilor Andrew Breton (1st District).
In an interview, Breton said the abrupt change had a particular impact along Patterson Avenue, where narrow buffer zones led to roughly 70 vehicles ticketed when enforcement began May 1. With Patterson residents being asked to quickly adapt or risk getting $65 tickets on a daily basis, Breton pushed for a grace period.
“It struck me as a large impact to that neighborhood that needed to be paused and addressed,” Breton said in an interview Friday. “And I’m glad that we have.”
The city’s news release did not say how many buffer-zone tickets will be wiped clean under the forgiveness policy.
The change, which the City Council approved on April 27, was meant to keep parked vehicles further away from bike lanes. Supporters said the policy will keep cyclists safer by reducing the risk of “dooring” collisions caused when car doors suddenly open into the bike lane with cyclists having little time to react.
Some residents cautioned against the tougher enforcement policy, arguing it was swapping one type of road hazard for another. The extra room given to the bike lanes, they said, puts vehicles and their drivers further into the road and closer to passing traffic.
Breton said the grace period will help avoid the appearance of pitting groups against each other and hopefully get more people on board with road safety changes.
“I wanted to make sure that we didn’t create a negative experience that might ultimately hinder our goals of making safer streets,” Breton said.
The city didn’t issue a formal news release on the no-parking policy for buffer zones until 5 p.m on May 1, the Friday the change began to be enforced.
Graham Moomaw
After the city reiterated the change in an Instagram post on May 7, several commenters faulted officials for the lack of notice.
“The irony of the parking enforcement vehicle being parked in the buffer zone to give me a ticket because my wheels were touching the line,” said one commenter. “Like maybe yall could’ve given out warnings these first few weeks since you aren’t announcing this til 10 days after it went into effect and it was never previously enforced.”
In a reply to that comment, the city account implied there had been a warning period.
“Warnings were shared last month,” the city account said a week ago.
Nina Broderick
Friday’s release acknowledged that, if any warnings went out, they didn’t provide enough notice. City spokespeople did not immediately respond when asked if there were any warnings given specifically on the buffer-zone policy.
Officials also appear to be working through discussions about how strict the enforcement policy should be when a vehicle’s wheels may be barely touching white line of the buffer zone but not fully in the buffer. On Patterson, some residents complained that the parking area is so narrow it’s difficult for many vehicles to fit without touching the line.
The city’s release indicated that touching the line will result in a citation once ticketing resumes June 1.
Ian Stewart
“Drivers should park fully within marked parking areas,” the city said. “If a vehicle cannot fit in a designated space without extending into a bike lane or the buffer, then drivers should seek an alternative legal parking location.”
Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org
