A model process for the future or the Son of Shoal Creek?
This week, City staff from the Bicycle and Pedestrian Program will begin convening a steering committee with the goal of creating a compromise solution on what has turned out to be a contentious proposal for Austin’s first bicycle boulevard. The committee will be made up of ten members representing various interests involved in this project:
Scott Sayers – property and business owner
Susan Harris – property and business owner
John Horton- property owner and DAA rep
Al Stowell – resident property owner
Renee Orr- Pease Elementary Parent
Andy Kim – ACC representative
Tom Wald – League of Bicycling Voter’s rep
Vince Lawrence – commuter bicyclist
Richard Hollenbeck – commuter bicyclist
City Staff – Mike Curtis/Annick Beaudet
In an e-mail to the committee members, Annick Beaudet from the City of Austin indicated:
The purpose of the Steering Committee will be to foster communication between representatives of various interest groups and formulate a consensus recommendation concerning the project. We anticipate that the Committee would meet at bi-weekly through the end of March, 2010, or at the Committee’s discretion.
The structure of the Committee is 10 people, including City Staff. The group represents a balance of various positions and interest groups. The goal and end product is to foster communication and to produce a consensus recommendation for the project, respectively. The recommendation of this Committee will be an important component of project moving forward.
This committee was suggested at the January 13 open house on the Nueces Bike Boulevard and was met with trepidation from leaders in the cycling community leery of a repeat of the Shoal Creek debacle. (See our last article on the open house for more on the progress of the bike boulevard and background on the ill fated Shoal Creek bike route.) Members of the League of Bicycling Voters have come out strong with a plan for a true bike boulevard on Nueces Street and a petition in support of this plan. The consensus coming out of the cycling community is the intense interest in getting a true bike boulevard, not a watered down compromise to appeal to everyone and to please no one, essentially Shoal Creek redeux. While we want to work within communities to make the best possible facility that respects the character of a neighborhood, good design and safety policy cannot be made with piecemeal compromises.
The selection of committee members raises some interesting questions as well. On the property owner side, we have members with a long history in real estate, a profession that is rooted in the art of negotiation. On the cycling community side, other than LOBV Executive Director Tom Wald the cyclists are relative newcomers to the city planning process. Indeed, Beaudet expressed an interest from the City in bringing fresh faces from the cycling community to the process. (Editor note: I volunteered myself for this committee and was not selected.)
While bringing more people to the process is an admirable goal, I would suggest we are rather late in the process for that. The news from the last two open house meetings is that we are at an impasse. If this committee is to hammer out an agreement that both sides can get behind, we both sides need to be represented by folks for whom this is not their first rodeo. It appears the property owners have seasoned negotiators while the cycling community is represented by individuals with much more limited experience in this regard. While a good outcome is possible and our community’s representatives will in no doubt fight for the best possible outcome, the committee membership selection does give some pause.
Will we see a model process that can be repeated in future creation of bicycle infrastructure or the Son of Shoal Creek? I am hoping for the former while bracing for the later.
Related posts:
- City updates bike boulevard, drops Nueces Street from the name ...
- LOBV’s D’Amico: City has removed the bicycle from bicycle boulevard ...
- Opposition to Nueces Street Bike Boulevard bring up same misleading concerns at UTC meeting ...
- City offers more options, positions harden at second bike boulevard meeting ...
- Massive turnout by cycling community at Third Nueces Street Bike Boulevard Open House ...
on Jan 27th, 2010 at 10:00 am
The signalled attempt to force ‘compromise’ when what’s clearly called for is a choice between fundamentally competing interests is the most obvious indicator that this is Shoal Creek Deux. This will inevitably result in a ‘bicycle boulevard’ where the only ‘facilities’ are signs on poles.
In Shoal Creek, The Original Debacle; the ‘bike community’ ‘negotiators’ were fairly experienced but still got snookered by Charles Gandy and Jackie Goodman.
on Jan 27th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Good point, M1EK. If upper level city staff and the Council aren’t willing to stand for a real bike boulevard, no amount of negotiating will do the trick.
on Jan 27th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
I agree that there really isn’t much room for compromise. They either make an actual bike boulevard, or they don’t. One side doesn’t want one, and one side does. The only thing possible that would be considered a compromise is to make an actual bike boulevard on Rio Grande instead of Nueces.
on Jan 27th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I will give city staff credit for designing a great bike plan, however this is the first real test of the implementation of that plan, and it is clear the city has no real interest in implementing anything that even has the possibility of stepping on the toes of anyone who owns property along a given street, regardless of the impact on those who rely on that street for their commute. As always, some votes count more than others.
on Jan 27th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
+1 Mark
I’d rather have a real bike boulevard on Rio Grande than a Shoal Creek scenario on Nueces. Even if that means I have an extra 20ft of elevation to climb over the 1 mile journey.
The only real losers in this though will be the property owners who try to push this property-value-raising-project to some other street. The owners I met at the meetings were classic short-sighted NIMBY people.
on Jan 27th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
“the future or the Son of Shoal Creek”
Actually, Nueces St. was built over Little Shoal Creek. That’s why it has such a gentle grade.
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/watershed/fs_shoal.htm
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/downloads/dtaustin_retail_strategy.pdf
on Jan 28th, 2010 at 10:26 am
O ye of little faith. There will be a Nueces Bike Boulevard and it will be significant in its…err…stature. Shoal creek was the era before hundreds showed up to public hearings. I could go on and on about the difference in the climate now, but in short: We’re going to make it happen. Shoal Creek deux will be an actual Shoal Creek deux (although methinks it would actually be trois or quatre, no?)
on Jan 28th, 2010 at 10:41 am
I hope you are right. Hopefully the meeting on 2/24 will not be postponed due to the creation of this committee (since per the email they are to meet through the end of March).
on Jan 28th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Rob, we had a huge public hearing on Shoal Creek – the UTC had to move to the Austin Energy building on Barton Springs to handle the crowd. And the political environment was just about the same – with the exception of Councilmember Riley.
on Jan 28th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
M1EK,
Shoal Creek redeux indeed.
I think the overall political climate is different today though I do not know if it is different enough to make a difference here. Also, we had the Shoal Creek compromise being spearheaded by a long time, lame duck councilmember with supposed environmental credentials. Wait, was I describing Jackie Goodman or Lee Leffingwell?
on Jan 28th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Just out of curiosity…does anyone have a number for how many cyclists were at the hearing in 06? Since I was lame at the time, i wasn’t there.
At some point I’d like to to hear the history of what happened before the 06 meeting behind the scenes.
on Jan 29th, 2010 at 11:16 am
I expect a large mob of cyclists at the next meeting, not for the purpose of drowning out discussion but just as a show of numbers. We need to pack that gymnasium with as many people that will fit in there.
There should be no rides planned for Feb. 24 unless that ride goes straight to Pease Elem. for the last public input meeting.
on Jan 29th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Rob, I’m referring to much earlier meetings – 2001-2002 timeframe – while I was still on the UTC – which led to the committee that eventually shat out the Gandy plan; not the 06 meeting which led to the City Council just removing everything and pretending to plan to study various markings later on.
You have to go back to some of Michael Bluejay’s very early stuff here: http://bicycleaustin.info/roadways/shoalcreek2.html
or some of my posts to the bicycleaustin email list from the same time period.
on Jan 29th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
A really good place to start in that link is on May 13, 2005; excerpted:
“Simply put: The City Council’s job is not to tell people to compromise. A chimp with a tape recorder could do that. Their job should be to make decisions when choices must be made between competing interests, whether it’s about zoning/infill/NIMBY, or parking-vs-bike-lanes.
Their abrogation of responsibility here is primarily to blame – although I also blame the rest of the UTC for their vote for providing at least some apparent cover for the consensus-compromise-plan.”
on Jan 29th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
M1EK,
Or as Pres Obama said today “I don’t believe the American people want us to focus on our job security. They want us to focus on their job security.” I’ve always thought leaders are elected to lead, and if you aren’t working for the common good, you’re wasting space that could be occupied by someone else who will. Of course, I’ve been around politics long enough to know that is not the reality especially in an entirely at-large elected city council.
on Jan 29th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Well, it seems to me that one point is clear:
A significant section of the bicycling community agrees we should not compromise the Nueces Bike Boulevard.
This means that all efforts are to be directed towards the goal of achieving it and, as shown at the two meetings at Pease Elementary, we have the support of the people.
The CoA has put on the table the proposition that they were interested in creating a Nueces Bike Blvd with the provision of not placing bollards nor large diverters on it. This may be perceived as a major blow to the whole boulevard concept, but despite it being a hefty compromise it is regarded as an acceptable compromise by many bicycle commuters.
Now, I understand that this compromise should be the last sacrifice from the bike community; ‘the line on the sand’ as the only one who was right, rightly says.
I have to say that the nine members steering comitee constitution is very scary indeed, we have two —perhaps three— members commited to the Nueces Bike Boulevard.
At the Pease Elem meetings the crowd was clearly in favor of the Nueces Bike Blvd. Why the difference? In an attempt by the city to be fair to all parts, we ended up with this strange composition of the body. That’s not the kind of weird we want in Austin.
I said it before and I insist, this is the fight to fight. Were we to lose achieving the boulevard against a handful of myopic tenants (who will benefit a good deal from a great public space), we will be subjected to beg for sharing every parking lane while calling it a bike lane.
on Jan 31st, 2010 at 4:44 am
Rob wrote: “Just out of curiosity…does anyone have a number for how many cyclists were at the hearing in 06?”
Seriously? Me. That’s it. I was, and am, upset that I couldn’t rally any support within the bike community. When the helmet hearing happened later that year and cyclists showed out in droves, I was like, “Great, but where were you a few months ago when the City was okay’ing parking in bike lanes on Shoal Creek?”
Actually, there was one other cyclist: Stan Truxillo of the Austin Cycling Association spoke at an earlier meeting (2 meetings before the final vote), telling the Council in no uncertain terms that the ACA was just fine with the Council okay’ing parking in bike lanes. I was like, Geez, with friends like these, who needs enemies? When I complained publicly about this on the email list, veteran ACA’ers got all pissed off that I was “attacking” the ACA and quit the list. They had zero concern or responsibility that the rep of their group lobbied *for* parking in bike lanes, they were just angry that I correctly pointed that out.
After this, I spoke at the UTC meeting against cars in bike lanes. I was the only cyclist there. The UTC passed it anyway, overwhelmingly.
At the next and final City Council meeting on the topic, I spoke again, delivering a 10-minute visual presentation on the topic, complete with pictures and diagrams, showing what it looks like when SUV’s take up the whole bike lane, and how it’s dangerous for cyclists to go around parked cars, not just for the cyclists, but for the motorists who then cross the double line to go into the opposing lane. Stan Truxillo was back, this time having been shamed into reversing the ACA’s earlier position, and supported the no-car-in-bike-lanes idea.
But it was too late. The vote was 5-2 for cars in bike lanes. The only dissents with Will Wynn and Raul Alvarez. I think Leffingwell was the only Yes who is still on the council.