14th and Maryland Ave, NE
“Dear PoPville,
The Zip Cars do not live on 14th street any more, they moved them to G street (behind the Chik fil a) because there is (thankfully) now a bike lane in that spot.
This is a fairly old change at this point and since it’s not physically possible anymore to park in the exact spot where they used to go without at least grazing a bendy-straw, you might think this is self explanatory.
Alas this creatively parked Zip Car sat blocking the bike lane on 14th for the past two days, which leads me to think there is someone out there who still needs this information.
So to whom it may concern: that’s not it. You can tell by how it is. That is a bike lane. And it’s a crosswalk. Yes, there is green paint, and green is the color of Zip Car, but green means other things too— use context clues. Or if confused just look on their website; it tells you where they go. This one goes around the corner, on G street.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with carsharing: Zip cars are not “free-floating” like Free2move’s, meaning you can’t just leave them anywhere— they each have a reserved parking space where they “live” and apparently also a name (I learned this from the customer service representative who answered when I called to inquire about when we might get our bike lane back).
That company rep apologized on behalf of Zip Car for the trouble and promised that they would send someone out to move Likya (the Prius) out of the way sometime before 10 am this morning. To my fellow bicyclists— you are welcome, rejoice, commute, ride and be merry.
It shouldn’t have taken this long for someone to do something about this.
I called the company directly rather than 311 because the number of tickets written by a variety of different Parking Enforcement officers stacking up on her windshield did not give me great confidence that the city had any plans to move her along.
So if you are a Zip Car member in the area and didn’t know, now you do. They moved.
So please, no more strays.
Or if you must leave one in the wrong place, pick any real parking space. There are plenty of incorrect places in the area to park a car, but that is one of the worst ones (and it’s bicyclists and pedestrians that have had to deal with it for the past two or three days). Spread the word to other members of the service if you know any. Thanks.”