It's already past noon and we haven't had a single bike lane outrage post yet—sorry to keep everybody waiting. We'll just say that this one's particularly uncanny: tipster Sarah Foster was riding home from work yesterday around 6:30 p.m. when her path was obstructed by this pretty impressive mountain range of recyclables in the bike lane on Ninth Avenue near 14th Street. Foster's succinct reaction: "Nice." And after the sun went down, the scene didn't change, as this photo from @MikeEpstein illustrates:
Courtesy @mikeepstein
We reached out to the Department of Sanitation to see if they're encouraging local merchants to leave their recyclables in the bike lane, or if some businesses are just taking advantage of wasted empty space that would probably just be filled with NYPD cars anyway. A spokesperson tells us what we see here is "not recyclables out for DSNY collection, nor does it appear to be commercial recycling either. Appears to be a scavenger operation."
