NOLA City Council passes $300 minimum fine for bike lane violations

Driving or parking in a bike lane in New Orleans will come with stiffer penalties under an ordinance passed by the City Council on Thursday.
Motor vehicles in bike lanes will now be fined a minimum of $300, under an ordinance the council approved by a 5-0 vote on Thursday. Council members Jason Williams and Cyndi Nguyen were absent.

$300 minimum for driving or parking in a bike lane, with a max of $500.

$300 is roughly double the minimum fine for speeding in a school zone.

The City has been striping in bike lanes all over the place without (it appears) a whole lot of thought behind them, and how they impact safety and traffic flow, resulting in a lot of accidents and some deaths caused by collisions between vehicles and cyclists. I'm dumbfounded at the City's approach to this issue - they keep squeezing in more bike lanes into busy streets instead of thinking it through or designated certain side streets as 'bike streets' etc.

Imposing the stiffest fine in the entire traffic law seems like a very dumb way to go - if you really want to make New Orleanians angry about something, send them to traffic court.

We'll end up pulling up bike lanes within a year if the NOPD takes this seriously.

https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_41ad8c22-51b2-11e9-a12d-73410b1c989f.html