Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

So I know there are some who will blame by-law officers for their enforcement of this, but as a former MLEO, here is my opinion:

Red zone to the left is the sidewalk.  Just because a surface extends beyond the side of the building, doesn't make it pedestrian only / sidewalk.  Its hard to tell with this angle, but if more than 50% of the sidewalk is blocked, then a ticket should be issued for that.  [50% may impede someone walking by, but the court won't uphold a ticket for a partial blockage unless other evidence is presented - ie. Officer observes a person with limited mobility struggle to get past]

Red zone to the right is covered by the NPA (No Parking Anytime) signage.

It looks like the yellow space (ESPECIALLY with the Private Parking signage) is a legal parking spot.  Perhaps the adjacent property owner leases the space from the city... which would explain the private property signage.



Coke

EDIT: I notice the building there has a security camera pointed at the parking spot... makes sense to keep an eye on their car.  I'm sure they dont overtly care about filming bikes heading to the bike parking.

I realize you are a former MLEO, but I really must disagree with this. Some, I feel is completely false, some, I think is just biased by the image.

The sidewalk was blocked, but not 50% but almost 2 feet (it's a wide sidewalk).

Unless you can point me to a specific bylaw which says parking less than 50% of the sidewalk is acceptable unless someone is observed to struggle to get by, I'm going to call bullshit. Courts make judgement based on the law, and the law says "don't block the sidewalk", not "mostly don't block the sidewalk".  If a court has made an error in legal judgement in your experience, I can believe that....they're just as failable as the rest of the justice system, but that is not a court policy, if it is, we need a protest.

But I don't think we do, I have a friend who has personally received a ticket for blocking a sidewalk when they were only 6 inches over, he measured, because he was angry, I was there in person, to see. This sidewalk was, for the record, several feet wide. He was blocking the sidewalk by less than even I would call in to complain about, and I am an asshole who calls and complains any time the sidewalk is blocked and I am inconvenienced.

As for the yellow space, you have simply chosen a line to draw around the SUV...that line is not perpendicular to the face of the building, by that logic, I can park anywhere next to a parking zone because I can just draw the lines however I want. That SUV was very clearly parked to the right of that sign, they are simply at an angle. Parking at an angle makes you an asshole, not a legal parker.

Part of this is the angle of the photo distorts things, the sign is only 2 meters from the sidewalk, it would be impossible to park any vehicle between the sign and the sidewalk, it is not intended to be a parking space, the signage is incompetent.

Third, as I already said, the use of "private property" on the signage is incorrect, that is not private property, there is no private property. I checked the city's property map before making this claim, I did not post a screenshot as I am out of image storage space, but I do not make claims like that lightly.

Edit: I see that you have drawn the yellow line along the line in the concrete, that is simply a decorative line, it doesn't actually mean anything if you see the entire square in context.