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Welcome!
We
cover bicycling as transportation, with an
emphasis on Austin, TX, USA.
We
don't cover biking for recreation, sport, or
charity.
Bicycle Austin is a volunteer project (not an
organization) by Michael
Bluejay.
Advertising revenue supports local cycling
advocacy.
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Email
List & Web Forum
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to stay on top of what's going on is to
sign up for the email list.
Every day the posts from the
web forum get sent to
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email list you won't miss anything --
you'll see all the email posts and all the
web posts.
I'm asking people to voluntarily
make their posts on the web
forum instead of the list. Those posts
will get automatically sent to the list
anyway. And by posting to the web forum,
we can make our discussions easily
readable by any web surfer, not just to
those on the members-only email list.
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Current discussions
New! Google Maps by bike!!! last post: 3/15 @ 18:02
http://maps.google.com/
Choose "Get Directions", then choose "Bicycling" from the drop-down menu. Have fun, and report strange ...
Texas cyclist ticketed for impeding traffic, is fighting the charges . last post: 3/12 @ 21:18
His blog is here -- http://chipsea.blogspot.com/
He basically was ticketed and then arrested in Ellis County and is now working on...
Speedway bike boxes last post: 3/12 @ 17:57
The bike box treatment underway at Speedway/38th is making me nervous – the first steps appear to have been to extend the bike lanes on ...
Marking Bike lanes and intersections last post: 3/12 @ 16:45
There seems to be much confusion on the part of both motorists and cyclist as to bike lane markings. One improvement would be to do what I...
Matthew Modine: "Cars Are Like Cigarettes; The New Pariah" last post: 3/12 @ 0:17
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-modine/cars-are-like-cigarettes_b_207894.html
[quote].... We must look at the movies and songs that...
Hill Country Ride for AIDS: 4/23/2010 7:00 am last post: 3/10 @ 17:10
Come join hundreds of supporters as we take part in the Hill Country Ride for AIDS.
The Hill Country Ride for AIDS is a recreational ride...
Yellow Bike Project last post: 3/10 @ 13:39
when does YBP...
Most Rediculous Car Commute Award last post: 3/10 @ 11:22
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A man deemed to have the shortest and "most ridiculous commute" in Malmoe has won a bicycle as part of a campaign to...
low riser handlebars and fenders last post: 3/8 @ 13:13
looking to add a few inches of rise to an old mountain bike, anyone know a good place locally or if these might be easy to find at YBP?...
commuter new bike advice last post: 3/8 @ 12:25
im starting a new job downtown and want to start bike commuting again from downtown ot far east william cannon, any ideas ona good...
Tickets to ride: more citations last post: 3/5 @ 13:51
A couple of evenings ago while bicyling south on Guadalupe near 46th I was pulled over by an APD officer and given a moving violation...
Modern Vehicles and Bikes Are NOT Compatible last post: 2/28 @ 10:02
Bikes should be banned from all Texas roads. In today's world, with massively large vehicles on the road, bikes are equivalent to toys. ...
Stolen Bikes being sold in alley near Capitol last post: 2/28 @ 9:32
Just heard from some UT law students that there is a woman that hangs around near the Capitol, approaching young people asking them if ...
Is this a stolen bike? last post: 2/28 @ 9:30
http://austin.craigslist.org/bik/1617893975.html
"Just picked this bike up (wink, wink) and really only needed it one time so am not ...
Congress/Stassney area to Barton Creek Square Mall-suggestions last post: 2/28 @ 8:58
I am moving to Austin in the near future and it looks like we will be living in the Congress/Stassney area, but I will be working at ...
Traffic calming in a dense urban area last post: 2/26 @ 20:44
This is a good video on streets that encourage all forms of use, in a dense urban area...
Bike Win! last post: 2/26 @ 13:20
http://failblog.org/2010/02/26/bike-win/
Mild entertainment. ...
east william cannon last post: 2/25 @ 23:44
anyone ridden the bike lanes? the road is pretty crappy in a car and i can not say ive seen any cyclists out on that side of town except...
Nueces Bicycle Boulevard last post: 2/23 @ 21:02
So far all the discussion about the Nueces Bike Blvd. has been on the (private) email list and not on the (public) web, so I'm trying to...
Stops signs as yield signs last post: 2/23 @ 20:42
This article from Austinontwowheels.com contains an exceptional video regarding bicyclists and their relationship to stop signs: ...
Bicyclists
cheated out of bond money!
On March 7, 2006, Raul Alvarez asked
the city to reveal how the $150 million in
city bond money for transportation passed
in 2000 (Proposition 1 back then) has been
spent so far. I got the results of his
request in response to my own recent
similar open records request made to
reveal how our bond money had been
spent.
This bond money was supposed to be
allocated in portions at $15 million a
year for ten years. So far $84 million has
been spent with $66 million in
transportation bond authorization yet
remaining.
Guess where the first five years
worth of Austin bond money went? The
first $67.2 million ALL went for SH 130
right of way, and not a penny for any of
the the other things promised to the bond
voters on the ballot! Meanwhile those of
us who live inside Austin are additionally
paying a lot for Williamson County toll
roads, like SH 130, via our Travis County
property taxes.
In the last year, for the first time,
some of the $150 million has been used for
other purposes like widening roads (to
widen roads like one that leads to SH 130
for example), but not a penny has yet
been spent for the promised bike
projects, although $10 million was
recently proposed in response to Alvarez's
request (with about $5 million so far for
sidewalks). If you read the
Chronicle article, you will see that
$20 million was being promised for bike
and ped projects just before the election.
The exact ballot language and more
background on these bonds is below.
To me, this kind of tightly held
information and bait and switch bond stuff
is proof of why we need to pass the Open
Government charter amendment, Prop 1.
-- Roger Baker, May 6,
2006
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Upcoming rides &
events
Want to get your event
listed below? Just post
it on the web forum and it will show up here
automatically 30 minutes later. Be sure to
include the exact
date & time of your event in
the title, so that shows up too.
Do NOT use relative
dates like "This Saturday" or "tonight"
because your post will still be here weeks from
now, and at that time the reader won't know which
day you're referring to. (i.e., Do not write your
post as though everyone who reads it is reading it
today.)
Hill Country Ride for AIDS: 4/23/2010 7:00 am (posted 3/10)
Austin Ciclovia! (posted 2/22)
Austin Bike Summit -- April 9th evening + April 10th all day (posted 2/18)
Texas Dance Hall Ride Schulenburg Mar 13th 9:00am (posted 2/13)
Rise Across Texas Challenge- Celebrity Ride: Wednesday, March 10 (posted 1/27)
The Alan Hughes Retirement Thursday Night Social Ride - Jan 21st 7:30p (posted 1/21)
Frankenbike October 31st 11 am - 4 pm at Freewheeling Bicycles (posted 10/29)
FRANKENBIKE #51 at Freewheeling Bicycles (posted 10/29)
Roll Beyond Coal - Austin Bike Ride & Rally - Sat 10/31 @ 1pm (posted 10/28)
Tour de Gruene 2009 (posted 10/15)
Site
Updates:
- Endorsed Chris Riley for City
Council.
- Overhauled the site design, putting the
menus at the top, and adding the most important
resources and external sites to a sidebar on
every page.
- City to consider allowing cars
to park in bike lanes on
Exposition.
- Added forum topics and events to the
front page.
- Belatedly added Lance Armstrong's shop,
Mellow Johnny's, to the Bike
Shops page.
- Added a note about MN cops confiscating
bikes of kids without helmets, to the
justice
page. Will they confiscate cars
when drivers aren't buckled up?
- Updated "Who's usually at fault in
car-bike collisions" on the No
Justice page
- Added the 8/08 KEYE story which
effectively
blames cyclists for the increase in car-bike
collisions, with zero supporting
evidence
- Cyclist
solves her own hit and run.
- Added a new cycling injury lawyer to
What to
do if you're hit or
harassed.
- Added a link to the 311
online form to the front
page.
- Lubbock driver gets only
probation for hit-and-run killing of
cyclist
- Updated the Austin
bike laws page
- Added a
PDF of "tickets" to put on cars
parked in bike lanes.
- Added Quick Links to front page, updated
govt.
& city
govt. pages
- Added historical info about the
City's failure to spend bike project
money properly
- Linked to the "No justice" article
in the Austin Chronicle, from our No
Justice section
- Our Open
Letter to Dr. Crocker, who supports
the helmet law
- Added The Peddler to the bike
shops page
- Added a route from
Austin to Elgin
- The Yellow Bike Project launches an
Austin
bike culture wiki
- Another drunk driver kills
another cyclist
- Adult
helmet law probably dead
- Law
professor faces no penalty for intentionally
hitting cyclist with her car
- Updated the City
Council page
- Hit-and-run
case in Garland, TX
- New helmet law being considered (see at
right)
- Added our
endorsements for the May 2006 city
council race
- Added details about cyclists being cheated
out of bond money (above)
- Driver who ran red light and hit two
cyclists not
ticketed.
- Created a new page about the
ACA's advocacy on the Shoal Creek bike lanes
issue
- Two April
car-bike crashes, one
fatal
- Added FrankenBike
to the events and
used bikes
pages.
- Teenagers
throwing stuff at cyclists near Shoal Creek
Blvd.
- Linked to a new
route for IBM to downtown.
- Council set to screw cyclists over Shoal
Creek Blvd.
- Updated the list
of bike shops
- Looks like the Lamar
Bridge might get finished after all.
- Eric Anderson reports on cyclists' success
in mitigating the redesign fiasco on the
Riverside
Drive project (Jan.
2006)
- New update on how bike facilities were
omitted in the Riverside
Drive project
- Added
the law about administrative suspension of
driver's license for DWI offenses to the
laws covering
motorists page
- Linked to a new, safer route to Bastrop on
the Routes
page
- Our endorsements
for City Council
- Added more to the never-ending Shoal
Creek bike lanes debacle
- Added another North
Austin route
- Exemplary
police response to harassment of a
cyclist
- North
Austin bike routes now has its own page.
Plus added a couple of routes.
- Added Patrick Goetz's encouragement for
cyclists to be effective advocates by joining
the Urban Transportation Commission.
- Redesigned the site, nobody noticed.
- Added a
failed statewide helmet bill from 2003.
- Reader-recommended
locks
- Added a route
to Ben White and I-30
- The Lamar
Bike/Ped bridge might actually be
finished
- Yet another hit &
run
- Hit &
Run on Michael Passman
- May
19 newsletter posted
- Costs
of car ownership updated
- Map
to San Marcos
- Guide to Touring
- How
to Rewire Christmas Lights to Run on
Batteries
- Natural
gas buses may be no better than diesel
- An online store selling electric
scooters
- New section on bike
lanes
- More news about the Shoal
Creek bike lanes mess
- Triggering
traffic signals
- Why is
there no justice?
- Keith
Vick's fatal collision
- TXDoT's 25-year
transpo plan
- Another North
Austin route
- Eric Anderon's status
report of roadway projects
- Older
updates....
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