This story is part of our Bike Blockers project. Submit your geotagged photos of whatever is blocking the bike lane to bikes@wnyc.org, and we will put them on our map. The idea is to track this over several weeks to identify which areas are hot spots at what times of day. The project runs through October. 

More than passenger vehicles or taxis, the bulk of the bike lane obstruction tickets in New York City go to commercial vehicles. Over 60 percent of tickets in the last two fiscal years went to vehicles with commercial plates. 

"Everything that’s brought to your home... comes by commercial vehicle," said Ken Thorpe, CEO and chairman of the New York Trucking and Delivery Association. And getting tickets for one thing or another is unavoidable, he added.

Take Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn. We've gotten five photos of vehicles blocking the bike lane over just one block - including six cars in a row and a van delivering smoked salmon.

A submission from our Bike Blockers project of a six-vehicle bike lane obstruction on Greenpoint Avenue between Manhattan and Franklin.

(Dan Connor)

Greenpoint Avenue's a two-way street, one lane in each direction, bike lanes on both sides.

Thorpe points out that the traffic rules do give delivery trucks some leeway: they can double-park for under 30 minutes. The idea is that cars could go around you.

But in a place like Greenpoint Avenue, you have two bad choices: Break the law by parking in the bike lane or break the law by blocking traffic.

"Once you're outside that bike lane, you’re often further into the street and in almost all cases, a police officer or traffic agent will give you a traffic lane ticket," Thorpe said.  

So we asked the city, which gave us a recorded statement from Deputy Transportation Commissioner Ryan Russo.

He confirmed that under certain circumstances, double parking by commercial vehicles is allowed, though not in the Midtown Manhattan core, defined by the city as 12th Street to 60th Street and from First Avenue to Eighth Avenue. But still, "If there is a bike lane, this must occur on the roadway side of the bike lane, keeping the bike lane clear."

Russo didn't explain what you're supposed to do if keeping the bike lane clear would thereby obstruct traffic. 

On that one block in Greenpoint Avenue where Bike Blocker participants submitted photos, the police issued about 130 tickets to commercial vehicles last fiscal year. 

Couldn't the trucks just drive around looking for parking? Thorpe said no: if a driver has a tight delivery schedule, that's often not possible.