When a car is parked blocking a bike lane, there are a few things you can do:
- You can honk a Loud Mini
- You can shout.
- You can deliver a short lecture on urban transportation policy.
And now you can also report it! We've been testing something in Boston, and it's ready for the world. Introducing the Bike Bureau — a simple way to document people parked in bike lanes. Your frustration has a submit button now.
How it works
There's nothing to install and no login needed. Open loudbicycle.com/bb on your phone, point the camera at the offending vehicle, and the app does the rest: it locks onto the car, snaps the photo by itself, and submits it with the location. The whole thing takes about three seconds, which is good, because you have places to be. That's why you're on a bike.
Every submission goes onto a public map and gallery, so every car reported parked in a bike lane becomes a data point. One photo is a complaint; a thousand photos are a case for enforcement and protected bike lanes. If things go well, we'd like to eventually connect this to official city systems too.
Point, wait a beat, submit
Privacy, done properly
We built this to hold cars accountable, not to surveil people. All the image processing happens on your phone, any visible faces are non-offending plates are blurred before the photo ever leaves your phone. The object vehicle of the report has their license plate is stored on the database. The world sees is the situation but not the people in it.
Free and open, always
You may have heard of another app that does something similar. We're different: the anonymized data you contribute will always be free and open to the community. For now it is a lot easier to submit, and last but not least, Loud Bicycle riders and all over the world and so we accept reports worldwide. Wherever your city is, your bike lane counts.
Start reporting
The Bike Bureau is live now at loudbicycle.com/bb. Try it on the next bike lane blocker you meet, and tell us how it goes, this is new, and your feedback shapes where it heads next.
Happy biking, and now happy reporting!