It’s the perfect weather for riding bikes in Richmond right now. If only the city’s road conditions matched the meteorological ones.

Across the East End, bike lanes, “sharrows,” and shoulders offer riders a smorgasbord of hazards. There’s litter of all flavors, random rocks and bricks, and dangling power lines. There are busted pavements, flattened flexposts, and illegally parked cars. And virtually wherever you may roll, from the James River to Oakwood Cemetery and everywhere in between, there are mini-dunes of road sand, still unswept two and a half months after the late January storm. Some of them aren’t even so mini.

The crash-inducing dangers are so common that East End cyclists have strongly held opinions on which routes are riskiest.

“Fairfield Way bike lane remains completely unusable. It’s blocked by overgrown trees, full of trash, and has damaged pavement,” Alex Fisher, a Church Hill resident and the creator of Ride and Dive, the citywide pedals-’n-pools spectacular, reported in a recent text exchange.

“The Leigh St. [Viaduct] is the biggest offender,” texted Alex Muller, another cyclist who lives in Shockoe Bottom. “It’s great having a wide bike path on either side with a protective space between the lanes and the road but there is so much trash that gets tossed in the bike lane, including broken bottles."

Andrew Bunn of Church Hill North voiced his own viaduct asphalt blues in a recent email exchange. “The bike lanes are so full of rocks, sand, glass, and construction waste that I end up with at least one flat tire a month using that bridge for my daily commute.” The sand, he added, is also wearing down lane markings on streets where they exist, making the roads even hairier for cyclists.

“Even when [the Mosby St.] bike lane doesn’t have cars in it, there are large rocks and dirt,” chimed in Christian Schick, another rider from Church Hill North, who’d been added to the thread. “So when I choose my battles, the rocks are worse.”

The Lookout has previously reported on the Mosby St. bike lanes, where drivers routinely park illegally while dropping off or waiting to pick up kids from Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. But parking in bike lanes is hardly restricted to that risky stretch of East End road. It seems to be a citywide pastime for Richmond motorists, as the anonymous cameraman behind the Instagram account @youareinthebikelane_rva has capably documented over the course of some 700 posts.

On a recent research ride through the neighborhood, your humble Lookout editor found himself scooting across Dock St., only to find the S. 17th St. lane completely obstructed by a driver in an idling sedan. My non-obscene gesture to the driver, encouraging him to move, was met with a stream of obscenities in return, encouraging me to… well, y’know. Not great—but not uncommon, either.

The city’s solution to scofflaws parked in bike lanes—a practice that has been explicitly illegal here since 2019—is to give them a pass for the sweetest cycling month of the year. On April 1st, Richmond Police Department director of public affairs James Mercante issued a press release announcing that (emphasis his):

This was no April Fool’s Day prank. I checked. “There can be genuine confusion from motorists about parking or blocking bike lanes,” Mercante told The Lookout via email, noting that RPD had in fact been writing citations prior to this seemingly arbitrary April grace period and would resume in May.

Serious, sustained enforcement on this front would be a welcome deviation from the norm. According to Paige Hairston, a Department of Public Works spokesperson, RPD and SP+, the city’s private parking-enforcement contractor, managed to write just 30 tickets for bike-lane blockers through the first three months of the year. (The April “reset period,” she added in the emailed statement, is “about raising awareness and changing behavior, not just issuing tickets.”) For those of you keeping track at home, 30 citations through March 31st works out to a rate of roughly one-third of one ticket each day, citywide. Deputize any River City cyclist and they’d be able to write more tickets in an hour—so long as a raging driver doesn’t run them over first.

As it happens, DPW has an $80,000 Madvac LS175 bike-lane sweeper to clear the way for the city’s two-wheeled travelers. It’s called MF Broom, a nod to the dearly departed emcee MF Doom. Though the city has struggled to source replacement parts to keep it operational, after The Richmonder’s Ian Stewart started asking questions about it last month, DPW posted some proof-of-life videos. MF Broom lives!

If it’s been to the East End lately, there’s little evidence of the visit. I’ve never seen the machine, and neither had most of the cyclists I asked. “I didn’t even know that was a thing,” Diego Marti, an avid Church Hill cyclist, told me. Fisher said something swept the Leigh St. Viaduct last Friday. That following Saturday was “one of the few days ever I haven’t had to dodge debris,” even though the westbound lane was still “pretty sandy.” But the benefits of that pass weren’t long to last. “When I went to work Monday morning there was already trash back in the bike lanes,” he said. No wonder some Richmond cyclists took it upon themselves to raise funds for their own tow-behind sweeper earlier this year.

Earlier this week, Hairston announced a photo op Mayor Danny Avula and his chief administrative officer, Odie Donald II, who would together unveil the city’s new “mini-sweeper.” Sadly, I couldn’t attend the debut this morning; I imagine Richmond’s 6’8” CAO would have been a sight behold on the downsized device. The MadVac LN 50 is smaller than the MF Broom model, with less litter capacity and an open cab that prohibits operation in inclement weather. That may be cold comfort to year-round riders. (Though Hairston told The Richmonder last month that DPW doesn’t do much winter sweeping anyway, so maybe not.) But beggars can’t be choosers, and apparently Richmond’s bikers can’t, either.

“I love seeing all the new bike lanes the city has added in the past 10 years but that’s just the first step,” Fisher told me. “To make them safe and effective there has to be maintenance and traffic enforcement.”

Spring is the season of new beginnings. Will this be the start of a new regime of meaningful ticketing and consistent sweeping in bike lanes in the East End and across Richmond? Hope springs eternal.

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

Courtesy of Lookout reader Amanda McRacken, the latest edition of East End Animal Friend is live now, and cute as hell:

As a reminder, East End Animal Friend is a new recurring feature spotlighting the many creature companions of Church Hill and its surrounds. Fill out this form to introduce your beloved animal(s) to the neighborhood in a future edition of The Lookout!

Quick reminder that The Lookout is still soliciting tips, tricks, and advice about moving to the East End for our very own welcome guide! If you haven’t yet, hit the comments on this post to leave your hard-earned neighborhood wisdom with the next wave of newcomers:

Tips can be involved and serious (how to fight a bunk water bill) or casual and fun. For example, Kathy G. had a hot tip on a neighborhood happy hour: she digs Soul N' Vinegar’s on Fridays from 4-8pm.

Keep those tips coming, readers! Your future neighbors will thank you.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.