The Chainlink

Horse and Carriages on Clybourn Bike Lanes?

I was riding south on the Clybourn bike lane the other day, bringing my daughter home from school and I saw something I had not seen before (I'm on the lanes on a regular basis but it was later than I would normally be on them). I saw a carriage horse driver taking his horse and carriage up the northbound bike lane, then I saw another one. It appeared they had passengers.

I have mixed feeling about this. I'm glad the poor horse is not walking in the middle of traffic (I'm very against the practice of carriage horses being forced to be on city streets and the danger that entails) but if I had come up behind them I would have been very annoyed because there would have been no way to pass them. The whole lane was being taken up by a vehicle that it was not designed for.

But my question is this: Is this a legal or illegal practice by these carriage drivers? I'm guessing it is not allowed but I don't know for sure. And has anyone else seen this? Is it a regular thing?

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Permalink Reply by David P. on June 2, 2017 at 9:24am

This is not legal - bike lanes are for bicycles only - but the carriage operators do do it, and they don't seem to care how anyone else feels about it. The first time I saw this I took a photo and wrote the carriage operator, and also tagged them on Facebook; I never heard from them.

Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on June 2, 2017 at 10:26am

Mixed feelings here also. There is (or was?) a group working locally to get the carriages banned for animal cruelty reasons. My google-fu is failing me though. Anyone else have a link?

Permalink Reply by Juan 2-3 or more mi. on June 2, 2017 at 10:28am

It seems any business, these carriage people, movers, cab/uber drivers, police, cta, even fire department officials could care less about what they do in the bike lanes.

I've asked them why and the standard response is they don't care and even like the regular cagers they don't want to be lectured on how it makes it unsafe for us to ride in traffic.

It truly is an uphill battle for us. Frustrating as it is I've given up and sometimes just just keep riding around these mindless sheep accidentally bumping into mirrors, kicking their stupid safety cones out of the way every now and then. Till then we just need more people on bikes to really make an impact on the streets.

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