The Daily Texan reported yesterday that as the Austin City Council moved to adopt the new Master Bike Plan last month, the University of Texas quietly asked the City to remove Speedway from the plan. This major cross campus route has long been used by student and staff cyclists.
Cycling advocate and member of the University Bicycle Committee as well as the Parking and Traffic Policies Committee was quoted in the article saying:
“UT is trying to ignore the needs of bicyclists,” Wald said. “There’s no clear plan of how to accommodate bicyclists.”
He said neither of his committees were given an opportunity to see what was left in and taken out of the bike plan before it went to the city council.
“They did not notify the UT Bicycle Committee that they were rejecting us,” Wald said.
This move seems consistent with discussions A2W reporter Marcus Sanford heard at a UT Bicycle Committee meeting earlier this year: the University of Texas wants to remove bicycles from the interior of the campus. With a campus as large as UT and parking always at a premuim, it would seem to be in the University’s interest to make space for and promote bicycle use. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen elsewhere the University doesn’t always like to be a good neighbor when its plans come into conflict with what the rest of the community wants.
Related posts:
- BAC meeting allows venting over last minute Master Plan changes, introduction of new bike lane installation process ...
- City consultant recommends removing hemletless bikers from Master Bike Plan document ...
- Austin American Statesman endorses Master Bike Plan ...
- Austin Master Bike Plan wins State Planning Project Award ...
- City Council Action on the Master Bike Plan, Part Deux ...
on Jul 14th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Nothing new. While at the UTC, UT tried to float a ‘bike plan’ whose only change to the actual bike facilities in the area was to add dismount zones to Speedway. Which, of course, happened. Woooo, bikes?
on Jul 14th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
That is crazy! I have never understood why UT doesn’t support biking more. When I went there and lived on 21st Street I biked *everywhere* – I didn’t own a car. Most people I knew did the same, because it was the fastest, most convenient way to get around the campus area. With parking on campus so scarce, they should be encouraging biking.
They started that stupid dismount zone when I went there, and it was really just pointless. No one dismounted unless the campus cops were there to enforce.
Remove bicycles from the interior of campus? That is hard to imagine, and hard to imagine why on earth they would want to.
on Jul 14th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
[...] UT quitely slipped in last minute amendment to Master Bike Plan to … by elliott This move seems consistent with discussions A2W reporter Marcus Sanford heard at a UT Bicycle Committee meeting earlier this year: the University of Texas wants to remove bicycles from the interior of the campus. … [...]
on Jul 16th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
[...] a planning consultant hired by the City with Halff Associates, Inc. The amendments include the removal of Speedway on the UT campus as we covered earlier this week, but it also included this gem that Jason at ATXBS found: • Replace all photos that have unsafe [...]