A Happy Turn of Events

Not two minutes after I posted the below entry, my phone rang and it was the building manager for the bike-rack building. She was extremely gracious and apologized for the delay in returning my call. I told her what was on my mind and she was receptive, but said she was having trouble visualizing the setup, so I offered to meet her at the bike rack right away to look at it together.

When I got there, she was with one of the guys who works in the garage, who had, judging from the expression on his face, been telling her I was out of my mind. The building manager introduced herself and shook my hand. I seized the opportunity to extend my hand to the garage employee.

The employee said that the rack is rarely fully occupied, which is not true, though at that moment, there were only three bikes there out of a possible seven. There was a truck in the car space, but parked so as to leave plenty of room. I was glad it was there, as a visual aid. It would have been better if the bike rack had been crammed with bikes; not sure why it wasn't.

I showed her how, if the six outermost bike spaces are full and there is a vehicle parked right on the white lane, as was so often the case before I spoke to the nice lady last year, you can see the one remaining bike space but you can’t get to it.

The garage employee said that if they have to use that car space, they’re careful not to go beyond the line. But if there is a van parked right along the white line and you have the innermost bike space, once you put your bike bags on the bike, there is not enough room to get out.

The building manager didn’t like the idea of putting a cone in the car space permanently. I mentioned to her the city’s five-foot guideline, but I said that what we were looking at was perfect; if it was that way all the time, I’d be thrilled. She gave me her card and told me to get in touch if I need her help.

She asked how long I’d been in the building and I said I don’t actually work in the building, but in an office building half a block away. She may have been wondering why I park my bike in her garage when I don’t work in her building. In fact, if any car can park in a given garage, then so can any bike, legally speaking, at least here.

So that was a very fortunate development and now I don’t have to think about any of these fights anymore, at least for now!