Austin, Texas. Just the words call up images in the minds of people who have lived here a long time, the recently arrived, and those dreaming of coming here. I know this because I’ve been all three, obviously in reverse order. I’ll stipulate that we’re much better off than Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and most other cities in the state. This isn’t a comparison with them. But compared to the great bike cities of the world, to which Austin can aspire, we are surely lacking. And Austin sure thinks highly about itself. It’s evident in our slogans — The Live Music Capital of the World, Keep Austin Weird, The People’s Republic of Austin, Silicon Hills, The Third Coast (as if–we’re over 200 miles from the Gulf of Mexico).

There’s the Southwestern chic element — businessmen, politicians, and UT football pep squad in cowboy boots (with a longhorn). The foodies — from trucks to top 10 restaurants, to barbecue joints people wait hours in line for. The creative sector — Festivals galore like South by Southwest, Austin Film, Moontower Comedy, Summer Film Series, Austin Bats, Austin City Limits. The tech companies — Dell, Google, Facebook, Tesla, Bumble. Sporting events — marathons, golf tournaments, FC Austin soccer team. The list of things we locals are supposed to be proud of goes on and on. One of those is our alleged bike-friendly status. Sorry, but I call bullshit batshit on that myth, and here are five reasons why.

1. Lack of Sidewalks

This first one may surprise you, but it shouldn’t. Think about it. When a bike lane ends, or isn’t there in the first place, bike riders need to sidewalks so that we don’t die by getting hit by cars. Except Austin sucks just as bad if not worse at sidewalks than bike lanes. (By the way, it’s not ideal to bike on sidewalks, and always yield to pedestrians if you do. But to save my life, I do it very time. And yes, it’s legal in Austin with only two very specific exceptions.) Don’t take my word for it, here’s data from the horse’s mouth itself:

“At the start of calendar year 2021, the planned sidewalk network for the City of Austin included 4,836 miles of sidewalks, of which 2,018 miles had not been built. A total of 20 linear miles of sidewalk were added to the network by the City of Austin in 2021.“

Source: City of Austin, “Percentage of Missing Sidewalk Network Completed”

A Dude’s Take: Really? Twenty miles of new sidewalk in one year? Holy Congress Avenue Mexican Free-Tailed Batshit, Batman! I’m sure since then things are much better, and in some cases they are. But less than half of “the planned sidewalk network” says it all, mostly. They don’t include all the places a person needs a sidewalk, but there often will never be one because not enough people will use it, demographics, businesses, etc. So, yeah, that’s strike 1.

2. Have You Ridden on (Name Any Major Street) Lately?

(That heading is best re-read using the dearly departed Matthew Perry’s character on the TV show Friends Chandler Bing’s sarcastic tone of voice and inflection.) Take a major street like Lamar Boulevard. Some sections actually have a bike lane. But hell if I’m going to risk life and limb to distracted drivers of cars, trucks, and semi-trailers, hoping a thin line of fading white paint will magically make them literally “stay in their lane.” And I’ve never seen anyone else stupid enough to use those bike lanes, either. OK, maybe when there’s light traffic, but even then, it just takes one drunk or texting asshole to end you. And where there’s no bike lane, maybe there’s a thin shoulder, usually not, you’re actively courting suicide by biking in the road. Take the sidewalk or a side road and live to tell about it.

A Dude’s Take: Here’s a little mantra I just wrote. Use it to save your life by following it. “If it’s not protected, as a safe place to bike, it’s rejected.” In other words, cyclists–especially young, old, and less skilled–require physical protection. And where it counts, there isn’t any. Again, the price of paint versus bollards, turtles, and curbs is a factual reality. But in the end, that excuse is tiresome, and the result is the same: most people won’t and don’t bike where it’s unsafe.

3. The Bicycle Advisory Commission Has No Teeth

Teeth like on a bike gear aka cassette. By the way, that’s an excellent pun, even if it was unintended. Read this recent “action” from the BAC, whose job it is to suggest things to City Council, in hopes that they direct staff to do something about it. While the language of this resolution sounds progressive, and would piss off car drivers for not prioritizing them over, well, everyone else trying to use the roads, government resolutions are not exactly known for binding policy commitments that actuallly change anything.

“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the BAC and PAC affirm that, in keeping with the
Contract with the Voters, ATP should prioritize right-of-way for pedestrians, bicyclists, micromobility users, and other transit options over preserving access for private auto traffic; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the BAC and PAC recommend that the City of Austin Project
Connect Office and ATP take a network-wide approach to upcoming public engagement on
multimodal investments to ensure light rail and Metro Rapid improvements prioritize
connectivity, integration, and expansion of Austin’s existing and future pedestrian, bicycle, and
transit connections.”

Source: Joint Bicycle Advisory Council and Pedestrian Advisory Council Recommendation, Project Connect Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure, Recommendation 20231106-003, November 6, 2023

A Dude’s Take: Maybe I’m too cynical after 26 years total of living here, but you won’t easily convince me that this weak sauce is truly going to convince the powers that be–first at Council, the at the BUS COMPANY–to add miles and miles of protected bike lanes and to connect our patchwork sidewalk network (see 1. above). Sure, public transit is great, and you can put your bike on buses or store them in lockers along Austin’s one (ONE!) rail line. Recommendations are great when taken and acted upon, but even if I’m recklessly pessimistic, knowing Cap Metro, we will be holding our breaths a good long while that this and other BAC actions will get much done as we need in a timely manner. Hope springs eternal, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

4. “BIKE LANE ENDS” Signs–Lack of Connectivity Is a Recipe for Disaster

Look, I get it. There’s never enough money or political will, we’re decades behind the need for bike lanees, and the Transportation, Streets, and other departments are doing their level best to build them. Good on those good people doing good works, even if the results seem to arrive as slow as molasses flowing down a glacier in the Ice Age. But when you’re biking along in a bike lane, and then it ends–BUT YOU DON’T–what are you supposed to do? Keep biking if there’s a shoulder or sidewalk, take a parallel route through a neighborhood (if there is one), or walk through grass, mud, rocks, across creeks, etc.

Here’s just one of many, Many, MANY examples I could city where a protected bike lane was installed, but then the funding and project ended, and cyclists are immediately at risk again. East 51st Street between Airport Boulevard is barely even half a mile, but it’s a key connecting street to get from Central to East Austin over the interstate highway. It finally now has nice protected lanes. Previously, there was nothing, and one side didn’t even have a sidewalk. So you were forced to ride your bike in the lane with cars, on the north side’s choppy sidewalks, or had to go out of the way to avoid that section.

But the and still now, immediately to the west, the protected bike lane ends when you cross Airport Blvd. and cyclists are forced to swerve a little left (unless you want to hit the curb or go up on the sidewalk, which is the safer bet here), and cross the railroad track. But the cars tend to keep going straight and veer into the bike lane, and it’s super dangerous if they aren’t paying attention. After that, there is a bike lane, but just with that white paint.

A Dude’s Take: Disconnected bike lanes are a great way to get cyclists injured or killed by a car, because you think you’re safe then you’re not, and you may literally have nowhere to go. Again, people will blame lack of funding, no doubt rightly so to some extent. But if you’re going to protect less than a mile of road for possibly as much as a million dollars, why not first find the funding to finish the job so that the whole stretch is safe for everyone–NOT JUST CARS? Because, lack of political will. That is what is missing, that and a bike lobby that is large, powerful, and organized enough to turn out 1,000 pissed off cyclists at a protest demanding that roads be made safer for cyclists much sooner than later. At the rate bike lanes are being built, most of us will be dead before we see the majority of Austin safe for cyclists.

5. The All Abilities and Ages Bicycle Master Plan Is a Pipe Dream

Austin has this idea that “if you build it, they will bike.” Someday, we’re supposed to have so many miles of bike lanes that those kids, seniors or less skillful cyclists I mentioned earlier can ride their bikes confidently. Safe Routes to Schools is one such program designed to help do this for students. Except it doesn’t cover every school or kid’s residence. I know this is true for one high school because years ago the principal shot down a proposal to advocate getting the City to make biking to her school safer.

As for non-students, in general, the lack of infrastructure scares people off. People who used to commute to work have told me they no longer do so because of too many close calls they or friends have had–or actual wrecks caused by car drivers. Parents won’t allow their younger kids to bike outside of their neighborhood, or only in parks. Even experienced cyclists have told me they would never ride on certain roads unless they were in a group. These are anecdotal, but common examples of a city being BICYCLE UNFRIENDLY.

A Dude’s Take: I think a radical paradigm shift will have to take place before we can call ourselves the Copenhagen of the South. Maybe gas going up to $8 a gallon, or no more lithium for electric and hybrid vehicles, or something else unforeseen politically, environmentally, economically. Shutting down parts of Interstate Highway-35 to demolish and rebuild it over the next decade will definitely cause havoc, and could drive people to bike, bus, etc. Maybe higher subsidies or rebates on electric bikes. No one really knows. But we do not that people keep moving here, traffic will get worse–even with more car lanes through downtown–and the younger population is already using scooters, rideshare, working from home, and even self-driving cars until they were shut down for a while. Until things really change, we’ll seee a minority of people ditching their cars for bicycles.

Bonus points:

• Lack of showers at workplaces. Few will bike to work without that.
• Rampant, unpunished bike theft. Why even have a bike if it’s going to be stolen?
• The increased cost of bikes partly due to continuing aftershocks to the supply chain issues from the pandemic, inflation, and who knows what else.
• Closed bike shops and bike shop deserts. If your bike breaks but there’s no shop to fix it, a lot of people would just quit riding it.
• What can you come up with?

---

Well, that’s my short list; there are certainly many other ways cyclists are discouraged. The point is, it’s not just the City’s fault we don’t see massive hordes of cyclists going to work and everywhere else. Because we ARE the city. To quote Pogo, an old comic strip character: “We have met the enemy, and it is us.” We can, should, and must do better to find alternataives to fossil fuel-based transportation that is poisoning the earth and our bodies.

The question is: “Will we?”

---

Copyright 2024 A Dude Abikes. All rights reserved. Shortlink to this post.