Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

ljmorlan: The majority of the vehicle is in the restricted lane, therefore, its not considered in the traffic lane.  If it was fully in the traffic lane, it could get a ticket for "Obstructing traffic".

Thanks for the information. This is disappointing, as it confirms that there is a double standard. Bicycle lanes should be considered, de facto and de jure, to be traffic lanes. This isn’t to say that some accommodation for people dropping off or picking up shouldn’t be made, but apparently bicycles can’t be obstructed by definition at present, which is crazy, and also justifies bicyclists taking a casual approach to following the rules (e.g. by riding on the much safer sidewalk, especially to get around an obstruction that is not legally an obstruction).

This is a rather minor example, I'd argue this is a much larger problem, and something which the vast majority of people who whine about cyclists breaking the law have never experienced, but most of our infrastructure and the laws surrounding them aren't designed for cyclists, this example with bike lanes is one, but even just take our MUTs, with all but one exception they have crosswalks at intersections which cannot be legally used by cyclists.  As a result, cyclists are basically expected to break the law in order to bike around.