In response to Councilman Husch’s proposal to confiscate all bicycles that are chained, tied to trees or road sign posts in the public right-of-ways, I decided to take a trip out to Historic Herndon and see who would be affected by his proposal.
I saw a lot of bikers, most of them were using the trail to travel through Herndon. Other were stopping to buy drinks or ice cream. Two bikes were locked outside Jimmy’s Tavern. Another outside the bread shop.
What I didn’t find were any people who would fit the profile of an illegal, instead I found mostly white Americans.
As a biked a little further along the trail I spotted this couple locking up their bikes to a street sign next to an open house.
The couple had biked to Herndon and were looking to buy a town house in Herndon specifically because it was close to the trail. They chose to lock up their bike to the street sign at Branch Drive because it was close to their destination and was a solid secure object.
If Councilman Husch’s proposal becomes law, I wonder what their reaction would have been to coming back to find their bikes had been confiscated?
Councilman Husch said that a Virginia Law already prohibits bicycles from being chained to signposts or left in the public right of way. I searched the Virginia law and didn’t find anything that would appear to give them the authority to confiscate bikes parked in the public right of way. So I would ask Mr Husch to let us know the section of the code he is referring to so we can review it.
Tags: Confiscating bikes, Councilman Husch, Town of Herndon, W&OD
If this is not a good a piece of investigative blog, i don’t know what is, and I hope you sent a link of your blog to Councilman Husch.
Ian,
I hope you told them that if they bought the house they could put the bikes in the garage. Then they could call the department of public works to have all those bikes removed from the street sign that are destroying their property values.
Anyway, what kind of town did they think they were moving to if they had to lock up their bikes in their front yard.
“Lock in their garage”: doesnt that assume that the townhouse HAS a garage, or at least one that is closed and lockable….
Confiscating bicycles because they are unsightly is not new. See the blog post at http://bicyclespokesman.com/an-ugly-bicycle/ for the story of a bicycle confiscated at Union Station