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USA. We
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BicycleAustin.info is a volunteer project (not an
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Bluejay.
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Bicycle groups to host candidate forum
by League of Bicycling Voters (2008-03-05)
The Austin Cycling Association, Yellow Bike Project and League of Bicycling Voters will host an Austin City Council Candidate Forum on the evening of April 7 at the LCRA Board Room, 3700 Lake Austin Blvd., 78703 (time to be announced). The City Council election for places 1, 3 and 4 will be held on Saturday, May 10 ... during Bike Month.
This is our chance to show council candidates that bicycle issues will play a critical role in Austin's future. And the best way to demonstrate our significance is to show up in mass! Stay tuned for more info, including results from the LOBV candidate survey at http://www.lobv.org. Here's the list of candidates who have announced intentions to run, although we won't have definite candidates until the March 10 filing deadline.
City Council Races*= incumbent
Place 1
Lee Leffingwell*
(more...)
NYC 1965 Mayoral candidate (1925-2008): bicycle facility advocate
by Tom Wald (2008-02-27)
William F. Buckley, Jr. died today. He was often cited as a conservative, but apparently in his 1965 NYC mayoral campaign he had proposed "an elevated bikeway on Second Avenue" and "bicycle lanes on major thoroughfares."
I just want to remind people that using bicycles as an urban transportation solution transcends a liberal/conservative divide. Bicycles are a pragmatic, functional, and efficient component of a healthy urban transportation system.
Some see transportation bicycling only as a hippie/liberal thing, but only so long as they stay in their caves (and strangely, a lot of people want to stay in their caves).
Sources: Statesman, NY Times, Wikipedia
Deceive the thieves - bike or bus
by Joan Hughes (2008-02-18)
So, in many central areas of Austin, there has been a growing incidence of break-ins (burglaries) of houses recently. The perpetrators kick in the front door and steal. Unfortunately, this happened to a friend of mine in December. She had been riding the bus to work (at my recommendation - after all it is free for us), and I asked her had she been keeping it up? No. She drove to work. I, perhaps not very consolingly, made the observation that if she buses to work, her car is in the driveway and thus, the thieves will not come, most likely. As I worried about my own safety after her break-in, I was more reassured since I do bike commute and my trusty but not-often-used car sits in the driveway. I also have a territorial dog, so I figured I'm not a good target!
Keep up the biking or busing and decrease your likelihood of a break-in .... not statistically proven but still fun to consider. (I think the dog thing actually has been proven though.)
Public meetings where cyclists can have an impact
by Tommy Eden (2008-02-18)
There are several upcoming meetings where bicyclists can offer input. Austin City Council meeting on Thursday, February 28, 2008 at City Hall, 301 West 2nd Street.
City Council will consider two issues of interest to us: (1) Approve the recommendations of the Street Smarts Task Force, and (2) Approve an agreement providing space for the Yellow Bike Project. For people who don't feel like going to the meeting at 10:00 a.m. and hanging around until late in the evening waiting for a specific topic to be considered, you can go to City Hall and provide a very brief statement at your convenience, at any time as early as three days before the meeting. Mayor Wynn will read everyone's comments during the meeting. The agenda item numbers will be posted on Friday, Feb. 22.
The Street Smarts Task Force Report can be found on the City of Austin website at http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/streetsmarts.htm
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"No
justice" issuue for cyclists gets big
story in the Chron
The Austin Chronicle ran
a
big story in Nov. 2006 about
motorists not getting cited or charged for
hitting cyclists, even when the motorist
is clearly at fault. We've been
banging the drum for years about this
issue in our No
Justice for Cyclists section, and it's
good to see the media taking notice. It'll
be a long time until this issue changes,
but the first step is public awareness, so
now we've taken that first step.
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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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