Stupid rules
I’m feeling like my civil liberties have been violated today. What follows is an email that I sent to the Pittsburgh Critical Mass mailing list, detailing an unpleasant bike parking situation.
Subject: An inalienable right to rack? [UDPATE]
Last week I posed a question about bicycle parking at the Moorhead Federal building downtown. A security guard had harassed me about parking my bike at the racks because I do not work in the building (I park there and catch a bus at Penn Station). It happened again today, so I decided to call the building manager for some answers.
I didn’t have much luck. According to him, since the rack is on federal property, they have the final say of how it is used. And, apparently, if you’re not working at or visiting the building, you are not welcome to park your bike there.
I expressed surprise at this since I thought a government building was supposed to be a building built to serve the people, but no dice. The building manager said that allowing anyone to park at the rack would take away spaces for those that really need it.
Never mind that in the six months prior to these occurrences, I’ve never seen more than three bikes in the rack at once, even on nice days.
I don’t really know the legality of this guy’s claim, but I’ll just accept it for now. It’s not worth getting worked up over. I’m moving to a different part of town in less than a month anyway, so in the meantime I’ll park somewhere else.
Venting,
Jake Krohn
Like I said, it’s a pretty small issue in the larger scope of things. But I’m sure that George W. Bush and/or the Patriot Act have contributed to it in some way.
