July 08, 2009

My Bike Lane.

I am a cyclist and sometimes I am annoyed about cars parking / stopping at bike lanes. However, I could never have imagined a website dedicated to denunciate drivers who park on cycle tracks. Users of the service "mybikelane" are asked to post photographs and the driver’s license plate of drivers parking on cycle lanes. Bicyclists taking law into their own hands? Vienna (1122 posts - after New York with 4755 posts) comes in second in the website's user statistics.

Bike Event, Critical Mass, Budapest, source: zsoolt,flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/zsoolt/2428277565/

There might be better ways to reclaim the street - like 'Critical Mass', "a bicycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities around the world."(source: wikipedia) Bicyclists gather to show the benefits of bicycle riding and to protest the monopolization of the street by car traffic. They celebrate cycling and assert cyclists' right to the road. Critical Mass has neither leaders, nor a central organization - it is an idea! 600 people participated Vienna's last Critical Mass event on June 17th. Reclaim the streets!