PEDAL IT ELSEWHERE: Phyllis Cannon shows the spot on Hone Avenue in The Bronx where she was parked when her car was ticketed (right) for blocking a bike lane. Thing is, there’s no bike lane. (Tomas E. Gaston)
A longtime Bronx business owner was slapped with a $115 ticket for parking her car in a bike lane that doesn’t exist, The Post has learned.
Phyllis Cannon, 72, has been fighting the outrageous summons for five months, to no avail.
“The city has really gotten ridiculous. It’s like they hide in the doorways of stores and give you a ticket as soon as you walk away,” Cannon fumed.
Cannon initially thought it was a mistake when she received the ticket by mail two months after parking her son’s 1998 Honda in front of 1820 Hone Ave.
She was heading to work at Superior Paint and Hardware — which she’s owned for 40 years — and snagged what appeared to be a perfectly legal spot.
Under the list of infractions on the Jan. 28 ticket, “bike lane” is clearly checked off, despite the fact that there are no such lanes anywhere on the eight-block stretch in Morris Park.
Even the city’s own cycling map shows that Hone Avenue has no bike lanes — the closest is five blocks away, on Yates Avenue.
Not that officials ever bothered to check.
Cannon initially challenged the ticket online, but was denied because she didn’t include any documentation. “I didn’t think I had to because there’s no bike lane on Hone Avenue,” she reasoned.
She sent in a second appeal, in writing, but was again denied.
This time, they gave no reason.
Cannon, however, has her suspicions.
“It’s like they have a quota they have to get and that’s it,” she said.
Cannon, a widow, said she couldn’t take time out of her busy day to fight the ticket in person because she has to work.
“I’d have to close the store!” she said.
She ended up paying the ticket on Monday out of fear that she would be hit with late charges.
“I wasn’t going to risk getting any more penalties,” she said.
City Councilman James Vacca — whose district includes the nonexistent bike lane — thinks she deserves a refund.
“This really tops all,” said Vacca, the council’s transportation chair.
“It shows you we have overzealous traffic agents, or traffic agents who don’t know what they’re seeing.”
Vacca said the fact that the ticket was upheld twice is disturbing.
“What kind of due diligence was done? I’ve never heard of anything like this,” he said.
At no point was there any plan for a bike lane on that block, he said.
The NYPD refused to comment; likewise, the Department of Finance.
The city has added more than 250 miles of bike lanes over the past four years.
Additional reporting by Jessica Simeone