“The City Stole my Bicycle”

“Dear PoPville,

I was at the WSC gym this morning on lower Connecticut (1211 Conn) between 9-10am. When I left, my bicycle was gone. It was locked up to an actual bike rack with a heavy-duty U lock. Here’s where it gets interesting– Both the guy at the gym desk and the manager of Buredo next door saw a DC truck (one of the utility trucks with a butane tank in the bed) pull up to the curb, a crew jump out, cut the lock with a torch and take it. All this happened within the time span of a minute. And they only took my bike; there were others they didn’t take. Again, locked up to an actual bike rack. The truck had DC insignia on the side and the crew were in high-vis vests.

It isn’t a particularly valuable bike, nor does it look like one. That said, it also doesn’t look like one of those languishing abandoned bikes we see all over the place either. In other words, there was no conceivable reason (logical reason anyway) for the city to remove it. The missing bike: a dark red 1964 Schwinn “racer” 3-speed.

Called 311. Called DDOT. Called DPW. DDOT is “looking into it” , but I won’t hold my breath. Has this happened to anyone else? What the fuck?”