Following the tale of tragedy of the commons, where a public space is available it will be abused for the profit of the greedy, we can find examples abound in Melbourne but the new bicycle lanes installed on Rogers Street show an unmistakable co-ordinated abuse of public resources.
Pronto concrete company uses the public road to queue vehicles entering the site grouped by their loads for maximum efficiency. This routinely uses both sides of the medians and the kerbs to corral the waiting vehicles which are typically stopped with a driver on board but can also be parked without a driver present. Looking down the middle of the road a typical scene is below.
Trucks are visible on both sides of the median parked against the right curb of their lanes away from the bicycle lanes (complete with car driving along bicycle lane to pass the truck). This alone would be contravening numerous road rules such as:
125 Unreasonably obstructing drivers or pedestrians
170 Stopping in or near an intersection
189 Double parking
198 Obstructing access to and from a footpath, driveway etc
And to reinforce the message there are specific no stopping signs (visible in the photo) to add a additional offence to the list:
167 No stopping signs
So you would think with so many trucks needing to use the road for queuing that the business had run out of space and had no other option.
But this picture of their private yard taken while the trucks were queuing in the street shows they in fact have vast empty space which could accommodate the vehicles. Tragedy of the Commons.
Melbourne Transport Disasters 