Cycling advocates take bike lane cleaning into their own hands

Cyclist John Murden knows a thing or two about Richmond’s bike lanes. 

“I've been riding around Richmond since the fall of 1990,” he said, adding he’d bike to classes at VCU and to work as well back then.

Now, as a resident in the Forest Hill neighborhood, Murden still bikes to work — he manages the restaurant Garnett’s Cafe, which his wife owns, along with Laura Lee’s.

But this year's winter weather has left the city's bike lanes in poor shape, he said.

“What happened this year, leaves ended up in the bike lanes and there's no process for getting them out,” he said. “And then snow and ice came and it's worse. There's blocks where they're either dangerously slippery or unrideable. Now everything's just sandy, but hopefully that'll wash away.”

He said he’s even cleaned sections of bike lanes himself with a snow shovel so he could ride safely.

There is an official city tool for clearing bike lanes. It’s an $80,000 bike-lane sweeper called a Madvac LS175, but which was dubbed MF Broom after the late rapper MF Doom (the MF stands for Metal Face).

But to many cyclists who regularly ride, MF Broom has been M.I.A.

“I have not seen it in real life,” said Murden.

Avid bike commuter Dan Nelson hasn’t seen MF Broom either.

“My knowledge is basically the city has a bike-lane sweeper. I've never personally seen it in action,” he said. “I'm sure it has done some sweeping downtown. I know that they've had problems getting parts for it. Some of that might be supply constraints that we've seen in the last couple of years.”

But MF Broom is alive and well, city spokesperson Paige Hairston said in an email to The Richmonder. She said typically, sweeping operations are limited during the winter and cold weather.

“In the past there were significant supply chain delays for critical replacement parts. Those issues have been resolved,” she wrote. “MF Broom is currently in excellent condition. While it previously faced long lead times for hardware like the vacuum head and replacement brooms, we have received our shipments and are fully stocked with the necessary components to begin the season.”

The city posted a video of the sweeper in action on Wednesday afternoon.

Regardless of MF Broom’s current state, Murden and Nelson decided to take up the task of cleaning the lanes by crowdsourcing a bike-lane sweeper that attaches to the back of a bicycle.

It started with Murden, who about six months ago saw someone post images of a people-powered bike lane sweeper.

That’s where Nelson stepped in. The Southside resident is an avid bike lane user. Seeing Murden’s Instagram post prompted him to take on the role of campaign fundraiser. 

“I was like, I could handle this and probably get it done in a week-ish, at least fundraising wise,” he said. 

Nelson was right. After creating and posting the GoFundMe page, which was shared by local cyclists, BikeWalkRVA, Outpost bikes and others, they hit their goal of raising more than $6,000 in a week.

“We got a decent amount of $50 donations, a decent amount of a hundred dollar donations,” said Nelson. “The biggest donation we got was $500. But it's been surprising how quickly it was funded.”

The unit Murden and Nelson picked is a hybrid model, which costs $3,900. Nelson's final goal included replacement parts as well.

“I'm ordering a spare brush because the brush wears out and it's going to go at some point,” Nelson said. “And I don't want this to have the same downtime that MF broom had. And then it's getting manufactured in Canada. And so there's a $900-ish tariff, which is probably tariff and shipping.”

Nelson was amazed at the outpouring of support for the sweeper, which may or may not get a name – Murden is hoping to steal MF Broom. 

“That shows the strength of the bike community. It's been really awesome to have the support,” said Nelson. “I think a lot of people across Richmond were like, that actually could work, and that would be really easy to do.”

How it works

The sweeper is attached to a bike — Nelson said preferably a cargo or e-bike to make it easier to pull up hills and to empty the bins. Two brushes sweep debris out of the way or up into two compartments through a battery-powered unit.

“I'll have a form, and volunteers will basically sweep whatever areas they want to,” he said, adding that he’ll make sure there’s no overlap in areas. “I'm definitely going to be a volunteer. There's some areas I'd love to sweep regularly.”

Nelson envisions volunteers holding onto the sweeper for a week at a time, so they can go out on a regular basis to clean and to recharge the battery.

For Murden and Nelson, the new bike-lane sweeper will be another way to help maintain the ever growing amount of bike lanes the city has. 

“People really want the bike lanes to be clean and safe," Nelson said. "And people who ride regularly understand that this is not an inconvenience, it's a hazard.”

There's word yet on when the new bike-lane sweeper will arrive. In the meantime, the city said cyclists should be on the lookout for MF Broom.

“The maintenance of bike lanes requires a significant number of resources; however, adding additional equipment will aid in continued and consistent maintenance for the entire city,” said Hairston. “Our goal is to service all bike lanes within a 60-day window. It [MF Broom] remains part of our maintenance operations and continues to be utilized. The equipment is fully operational and deployment ready.”