Photo by urbandispute.

A poster on MyBikeLane — a forum dedicated to recording and monitoring vehicles who park in the District’s bike lanes, obstructing access to cyclists — was none too pleased upon noticing that Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans’ Chrysler Sebring was parked awkwardly in the right lane of 13th Street NW near New York Avenue NW yesterday. In a post titled “More Council Bullshit,” a poster named “freedc” reported that Evans’ car was really causing some issues for cyclists:

The vehicle was not in a marked bike lane, but the right lane is pretty important to cyclists in the absence of painted lanes, and this car was violating at least three rules: No Parking Any Time sign, Emergency No Parking, and parking less than 15 feet from an intersection.

If I had crashed (and it was a close call were it not for a kind driver one lane over who stopped short to let me in), it would have been no consolation that the council member did not have to spend 5 minutes finding a legal and SAFE place to leave his car, like everyone else.

While whether Evans’ parking choice was a good one is certainly debatable, the legality of him parking there isn’t. In 2002, the Council gave itself the right to park anywhere it wants inside the confines of the District with immunity from ticketing, and plenty of members of the legislative body, like Vince Gray and Jim Graham, often take advantage. Kwame Brown once even used an incident of his car (improperly) getting towed as a way to charm a potential voter.

Most people don’t like it, but the truth of the matter is that there could have been a “No Parking Under Threat of Nuclear Attack” sign at the spot and Evans could have parked there for days without penalty — and based on the number of times we’ve personally seen Councilmember vehicles riding the curb in various no parking zones around town, something tells us that law won’t be changing anytime in the near future.