MPD officer tells cyclist to get into non-existent bike lane

Reader Patrick relays a story from this morning,

I wanted to relay a scene I experienced this morning involving some DC
metro police. It took place on 16th street, going south on the hill
coming down from Euclid to U street, along Meridian Hill Park. As you
know, this hill is pretty steep and during rush hour traffic al
three lanes are clogged. Basically the whole street is filled with cars
all the way to the curb, leaving little to no space for bikes. To get
around this, I, and almost every other biker I’ve seen on that road over
the past two years, usually ride between the lanes until after W St., at
which point more room opens up on the right side of the road. The only
issue I’ve ever encountered with this strategy is the occasional car
changing lanes without signaling.

This morning as I rode this stretch, everything was going fine
until I had to stop short due to an MPD car abruptly cutting me off
by turning toward the adjacent lane. This was a potentially dangerous
move and I grudgingly chalked it up to the cops simply not seeing me. However, as I tried to
weave around their car, they gave a short burst of their siren and told
me to pull over to the side of the road. I reluctantly obliged, moving
around two lanes of traffic to the corner of 16th and W, and watched as
the cops tried to do the same. After a minute, they realized that they
probably wouldn’t be able to traverse the same two lanes of clogged
traffic and instead got on their loudspeaker. They blasted the
following statement at me: “You are required to bike in the bike lane!”

There is no bike
lane on 16th Street. This cop was ordering me to bike in a non-existent
bike lane. Thankfully, by this point, a few other bikers had gathered on
the corner so I had some backup as we all pointed out that there was no
bike lane in which we could bike. Their response was that if there
wasn’t a marked bike lane, we should consider the right-hand side of
the road  to be a bike lane. We then pointed out that the right-hand
side of that stretch of 16th was very dangerous since cars drove so
close to the curb. Their response: “It doesn’t matter, follow the law!”
And they drove off.

Cyclists aren’t required to ride right when they’re moving faster than traffic.