Opposition to Bike Boulevard shown to be loud but not deep
In the largest turnout to date, the City of Austin held its third and final open house on a proposal for Austin’s first bicycle boulevard on Nueces Street downtown. City staff estimated a total of 500 people attended the meeting while over 300 of these attendees came out in support of the League of Bicycling Voters proposal for the facility.
In an attempt to focus on education and downplay opportunity for grandstanding, city staff had no formal presentation or meeting instead putting up displays of possible traffic calming tools and locations as well as the initial findings of a traffic impact report commissioned by the City. The report found that currently bicycles make up 9% of the traffic on Nueces Street in this corridor and more importantly that proposed traffic calming would do nothing to impact automotive traffic counts since Nueces Street is currently designed to be a serve local traffic and discourage traffic cut through.
While the cycling community had an impressive show of force, the opposition recently formed under the ironically name Keep Austin Moving has appeared to be a vocal, if not numerous group. The group has launched a website and printed yard signs which are currently out on Nueces Street. Their level of support outside of a handful of property owners is questionable when it was pointed out yesterday that their Twitter page had 2 followers (as of this morning it grew to 6) and their Facebook group contained more supporters of the bike boulevard than opponents. (It was probably not helpful that there is a Austin-based moving company under the same name that come up first in search results.) One also wonders how many people have signed their online petition launched over a week ago against the bike boulevard since the word petition is misspelled in a header on that page. Meanwhile, the number of people who signed the League of Bicycling Voters petition in support of the bicycle boulevard has doubled in less than a week.
On a darker note, one of the Nueces business owners talked to me last night about his anti-bike boulevard yard signs being defaced and destroyed. I ask all my readers to please be respectful of these individuals’ businesses and their right to express themselves and to focus your energy on letting people know how the bicycle boulevard will improve mobility and encourage economic growth and correcting false and misleading statements about what the bike boulevard will do.
UPDATE
This was left out of the original post: Next steps on the process include recommendations by staff and review by the Urban Transportation Commission and final City Council. Expect the UTC to look at this at their April meeting and the Council some time in May.
Related posts:
- First bike boulevard open house highlights tensions between cyclists and Nueces Street property owners ...
- Tonight the last in a series of open houses on the Nueces St Bicycle Boulevard ...
- Opposition to Nueces Street Bike Boulevard bring up same misleading concerns at UTC meeting ...
- City updates bike boulevard, drops Nueces Street from the name ...
- Your voice needed at upcoming Nueces Bike Boulevard open houses ...
on Feb 25th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Come on people. Leave the signs alone. Their entitled to express their opinions.
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 12:23 am
The LOS (Level of Service) indicators that the city published on those posters didn’t just represent automotive traffic counts. They’re counting people using various modes of transport and that’s encouraging in itself.
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Are their signs placed legally? The one I noticed –
http://cycling.frenzied.us/2010-02-24-Nueces_Bicycle_Blvd_Open_House/tn/img_5223.jpg.html
is that legal? (It was on Nueces, near 5th or so.) The city does have laws about where signs can be put, but I’m not familiar with the specifics.
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
For example, this guy could be removing them –
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/6971471/18122733
Based on what that video says, I’d guess that particular sign was illegal — it’s only a few inches from the street.
Of course, if they’re being defaced, he wouldn’t be doing that. But I have heard of anti-sign crusaders spray-painting over the phone numbers and web sites of signs as a quicker way of discouraging it.
Really, my point is that it might not be bicycle boulevard supporters who are doing it — and part of it might be the city itself!
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Doug,
It is not. Privately produced signs are not allowed to be in the right of way on a property. ROW is the space between the street and the sidewalk or 18 feet if there is no sidewalk. During elections, the City road crews usually pull these but you might want to let them know the sign is illegal and could be pulled. You might also want to let them know they are telling a decent part of the Austin market where NOT to open a bank account.
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Bank account? I’m not following you there …
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Doug,
Yes, this is a pretty run of the mill incident in political campaigns. Usually, it’s the city or TxDoT road crews responsible for missing signs.
On a positive note, I always knew when either my client’s or their opponent’s campaigns were in trouble when the focus was on yard sign wars. People focused on protecting or attacking totems aren’t doing the real work of winning their battles.
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
That sign in the picture unless I’m mistaken is in front of a bank: Sovereign Bank. I won’t be putting my personal or business money there!