I recently locked my bike to a bus stop pole in front of the Fullerton el station. When I returned the following night, the bike was gone— and my U-bolt sat on the ground, sawed in two.
I reported the theft to the police and to my insurance agency. To be fair, when I returned to the bus stop that night, I saw a sign, a few inches down from the CTA route sign, that I had never seen before (and I had passed by the stop many times): it warned that bikes locked to the pole could be removed.
I e-mailed CTA customer service to ask if it was possible that one of their employees took it. And if so, if it was normal practice to take a bike without leaving a notice.
I asked, too, whether— if that was the case— the CTA recorded the serial numbers of the bikes it took.
An agent quickly wrote back to apologize for the inconvenience, adding, “On occasion, we have bicycles abandoned at racks at CTA stations; we post a note on the rack to give the owner time to claim the bike. However, if no note was ever posted as a warning, then we will forward this information to the responsible General Manager for corrective action.”
I later came across a Web page that said that if a bike were taken quickly, without any warning, it was probably a thief, and not the transit agency.
That was that, I figured; if the CTA had my bike, the serial number would get cross-referenced with the police report, and I’d be notified.
I bought a new bike, along with the accessories I had lost. Yet I couldn’t get over how someone could saw through a U-bolt lock in front of a 24-hour station with a security guard— and on a busy thoroughfare, no less.
I did some more searching on the Web and found this on the CTA’s site: “Cyclists are prohibited from securing bicycles to handrails, railings, doors, ramps and stairways, or in any way blocking access to and from stations. Bicycles in violation of these regulations and/or creating a public safety hazard will be tagged and removed without notice. CTA will store these bicycles for 30 days. When in doubt, cyclists should ask CTA Station personnel.”
I went back to the station and asked the agent on duty if it could have been the CTA. Oh, yeah, he said; you shouldn’t lock up your bike to a bus stop pole. (Thanks.)
The Web page also mentioned that cyclists could call a toll-free number or e-mail the Bike and Ride Program Manager directly. So, I e-mailed the program manager, asking if the transit agency catalogued the serial numbers of the bikes they took— and whether they reported them to the police, or to the National Bike Registry.
I never heard back.
I decided to go out to the garage on the West Side where removed bikes are stored. It had taken some doing to find the address online— 3920 W. Maypole Ave., just off Pulaski Rd— but I eventually reached the garage.
They had my bike, and I got it back.
Back to why I’m posting this: I want to petition the CTA, in a respectful way, to start cataloging the serial numbers of bikes it removes. It seems only fair that a police report get cross-referenced with the inventory of a government agency. I don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else.
Can anyone help?
Even with ideas of an advocacy group that could offer assistance?
Tags:
The police would only be able to get a bike back to its owner if it had been registered; based on what I've seen the only time they would reference a bike against theft reports is when a detective is trying to build a case against a specific thief and is trying to match seized property with a victim.I have no real facts to base this on, so maybe I should just keep it to myself (but then what would the Internet even be for, right?). But I imagine you'd get farther either asking the CTA to hand the bikes over to the cops, who could then check it against their own records, or asking the CTA to put a sticker on the bus sign poles telling people not to lock there.
The problem with this proposal is that not all people bother to document the serial numbers of their bikes, some bikes have the serial number stamped in places that people wouldn't know to look, and some bikes even have no serial numbers at all. To establish some sort of system to attempt to catalog every bike that gets taken to their storage facility would be a colossal waste of labor and resources considering the very low number of people that might possibly benefit from it. Be glad that they have the courtesy to store your bike for a month free of charge, don't lock your bike where people get on and off of buses anymore and leave it at that.
Ok....
My bike is located in my apartment. My apartment is owned by my landlord. Therefore, my landlord owns my bike.
Following my (and your) faulty logic here?
Jan said:
M.A.R.K. said:The sign post may indeed be the property of the CTA, but that sign post is located on municipal property.
John Greenfield said:Well, the City's bicycle ordinances explicitly state that it's
legal to lock bikes to sign poles, so this seems to be a conflict with CTA
policy - see below. I will consult the authorities on this.
John Greenfield
9-52-070 Parking - Permalink
No person shall park a bicycle upon a street other than upon the roadway against the curb or upon the sidewalk against a rack, parking meter or sign pole to support the bicycle or against a building or at the curb in such manner as to afford the least obstruction to pedestrian traffic.
Added Coun. J. 7-12-90, p. 18634; Amend Coun. J. 7-21-04, p. 28659, § 1
I think the conflict here possibly is the difference between city property, and private property.. The city says you can do certain things on their property, while the CTA says you cannot on theirs. Bus stops and the like are their property, and they do not want people locking and abandoning bikes to their property.
OK, we spoke with the Bike & Ride contact at CTA about this.
The CTA's policy is that they will remove bikes locked to their property (posted earlier in this discussion). They will also remove bikes that are blocking access to buses or stations. I believe Pablo mentioned this.
If a bike is locked to a street pole (city or other property) and is obstructing access to people getting on or off buses, they would remove the bike.
As mentioned, the policy is to tag the bike (location, date, time) and hold those bikes for 30-days.
If this happens to someone, you should call 1-888-YOURCTA (968-7282) and let them know your bike was removed. They'll ask you for a description and will work with you to get it back (which is what happened to David).
Bike & Ride told us that some of the info on CTA's site was incorrect (things that caused confusion in this discussion) and they will be making those updates.
Part of that is that the Bike & Ride email address is invalid. The best and only way for the public to contact CTA about a bike-related issue is the 888 number.
They said that they would look into the possibility of incorporating bike serial numbers into their system but couldn't say whether or not that would be possible at this time.
We can follow-up with them later this month about that.
Thanks much,
Ethan, with Active Trans
How much side income does CTA stand to make by the sale of confiscated bikes? Your recovery just put a small dent in that side income.
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