EXCUSE ME ..YOUR CAR IS PARKED IN OUR BIKE LANE!

Our City streets are a public right of way owned by all the people, to give preference to one group is to deprive the other of its rights too fair use, presently half of our  roadway is “dead-space” taken for the storage of personal private property (parking), in what rightfully should be a lane for slower moving traffic, this practice  has resulted in many years of injury and loss of life. With metered parking the city is profiting by it ! Written in the Key West City’s own codes Sec. 62-2. Obstructions. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person willfully to obstruct any public right-of-way, street, roadway, by impeding, or restraining the passage of either pedestrian or vehicular traffic or by endangering the safe movement of pedestrians or vehicles traveling thereon. Just as the awareness to the hazards of public smoking we need to stop putting the perks of the auto owners ahead of the safety of our citizens and visitors. When asked about removing a few spots on Eaton to “finish the bike path” a City Commissioner said “i don’t want to be the one to tell the them they can’t park there” I wonder if he would rather be telling the family of the next victim he’s sorry but accommodating cars storage is more important than their lives! The”new” Flagler ave with no lane for bikes is another example of this “expired mind set”. For too long our precious bodies have been squeezed between heavy metal and pressed into danger, excuse me your parked car is killing me!  With the fuel crisis and new green movement pushing for alternative means of transportation we need to take back the “Public Right of Way” for its original intended service lets get the stored cars out of the way and make room for the new human powered movement ! Key West should be passionately promoting the use of low impact human powered transportation vehicles that are part of the solution such as walkers,bicycles, skateboards, roller blades, human-electric – hybrids etc..

rick keith   rickeith.com

written by catamaran99