... leaning on a post from a parking
meter that had been removed when
the bike lane was installed, and not
ticketing the illegally-parked SUV.

4:55 PM. Officer in foreground still talking with the same motorist. Officer in backround  now talking with another motorist.

I try to live in the real world and so I don't expect the police to enforce thoroughly and consistently against illegal parking on Massachusetts Avenue. As I've said elsewhere, truckers making deliveries to the businesses along Mass. Ave. have no alternative but to park illegally. Customers of the businesses also find it convenient to park illegally to run in and out of a store. Parking is scarce, and stern enforcement would be unpopular. As long as parked vehicles aren't blocking through traffic and causing a traffic jam, the balance of real-world interests for the police is on the side of turning a blind eye.

Still, it might be asked whether the police should regard blocking the bike lane as a more serious offense than blocking another part of the street. My answer is: quite the opposite. Keeping the bike lane open is not usually necessary to keep traffic -- including bicycle traffic -- moving  The bike lane is at the side of the street, the usual location for parking. Illegal parking outside the bike lane would narrow or close the channel at the center of the street and  would effectively block traffic except for bicyclists -- but the crash rate for bicyclists would skyrocket. Bicyclists threading through on the right, past stopped vehicles that block their view of the street ahead, would be exposed to a much greater risk than bicyclists passing normally on the left.

Still, there's no need for police officers to add insult to injury by standing and talking with motorists whose cars are blocking the bike lane for 10 minutes or longer. (How much longer? I don't know. The conversation with the motorist in the foreground had started before I arrived, and it was continuing as I left.)

To the officers' credit, they ignored me completely as I stood on the corner in plain sight, taking pictures. At other times and places -- not in Cambridge -- I have known police officers to become hostile in embarrassing situations.