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Thanks Michael,
It is exciting. Tom is definitely the driving force behind keeping CapMetro on top of this project. But there is also a lot of good general advocacy coordination pushing to make this a reality. I know I'm personally bugging city staff and leaders in Cedar Park and CTRMA board members about this project. The section through Cedar Park would really help complement our Trails Master Plan and improve connections up here in Wilco.
Darron
CapMetro is hosting a virtual open house about the Red Line Trail Study. The virtual open house will be live to the public through November 17, 2023. This trail can connect Cedar Park with Austin and Leander with a high quality bikeway separated from traffic. There is a link to a survey in the open house where you can mark areas you would access with this trail, for example in Cedar Park these could be:
Brushy Creek Sports Park the Brushy Creek Trail
Bell District
Cedar Park Rec Center
Lakeline and Leander Stations
The Red Line Trail Study aims to identify a feasible and safe alignment for the Red Line Trail based on identified constraints and opportunities. The Red Line Trail is a vision for a trail network that generally follows the 32-mile Red Line commuter rail corridor from Downtown Austin to Cedar Park to Leander. The Red Line Trail Study will also identify connections to transit stations along with recommendations for near-, mid-, and long-term implementation.
Check out the open house here:
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5f … 4720fd982c
If you have kids, encourage them to walk or bike to school. https://www.walkbiketoschool.org
Check out if your local school is having an even and consider being a bike bus leader or donating some refreshments for the kids that participate. 32 Austins School are participating: https://www.walkbiketoschool.org/regist … yid=AUSTIN
Darron
I received the PDF application. Take a guess as to whether it's fillable.
Did you have to print it out, fill in by hand, fax it back to them, then email them to check the fax machine? 😆
Yep, we are going backwards compared to the rest of the world on traffic fatalities and specifically bike/ped fatalities. This was a topic at a last fall's 2022 Texas Statewide Pedestrian Forum. The NHTSA's presentation has some of the specific data on this subject.
TX
15.5% increase in fatalities
44.7% increase speed-related fatalities
11.8% increase ped/bike combined
per 100M vehicle miles traveled (VMT), 2018-2020
U.S.
17.5% increase in fatalities
17.5% increase speed-related fatalities
2.9% increase ped/bike combined fatalities
per 100M VMT, 2018-2020
Reducing vehicle speed was highlighted as a way to reduce deaths.
Thanks Michael, are you giving this feedback directly to the city? The comment period closes today, Mar 21, for the Urban Trail, Sidewalk and Bike Plans: https://www.publicinput.com/atxwbr
Austin Outside (AO) just sent some collective feedback on ATXWBR. Specifically on the draft Urban Trails Plan, Bicycle Plan, and Sidewalks,
Crossings, and Shared Streets Plan based on the drafts shared with the public during February-March 2023.
For Shared Streets, AO recommended some more specifics:
In order to succeed, Shared Streets must offer safety benefits to pedestrians that are on par with what sidewalks offer. Sidewalks keep people safe by separating them from car traffic. To achieve a comparable level of safety in a Shared Street context where pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers are expected to encounter one another, car speeds must be slowed to the point where the risk of
serious injury is extremely low.
The target range for car speeds should draw on evidence about vehicle speed and the risk of severe injury. According to a 2011 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph. The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph.
The Plan should establish clear, consistent metrics of success in order to determine whether a given Shared Streets configuration provides adequate levels of safety.
The neighborhoods where this treatment is planned for should be able to repurpose the areas that are reclaimed from vehicle right-of-way, with vegetation, planters, and other desirable uses.
Here are the details of the event if any other advocates are interested in joining:
Active Transportation Advocates of Cedar Park, Red Line Parkway Initiative, and Austin Outside invites you to an afternoon of biking through the vibrant and thriving outdoor spaces in Cedar Park including the all-new, 200+ acre Lakeline Park. This 9.5 mile loop bike tour starts at Pedego Electric Bikes in Cedar Park at 12:00noon on March 25th. Participants should plan on bringing their own bike or renting ahead from Pedego (limited bikes available). In addition to Lakeline Park, we will also tour some of the current and potential active transportation facilities in the area including: 183A Shared Use Path, Brushy Creek Regional Trail, Neighborhood Parkways/Bike Lanes, Bell District, Red Line Parkway alignment, advanced bike/ped signalization, and more! (View the route map.)
If coming by MetroRail, the first northbound Red Line train arrives at 11:09am at Lakeline Station and it is a ~6 mile ride to Pedego from there. The total distance for those departing and returning to Lakeline Station will be about 20 miles. If you are joining this group, please choose the Lakeline Station option when registering for the ride.
Thanks to our sponsors Electric Avenue and People for Bikes.
His district keeps getting gerrymandered so people who are on to his shenanigans (southern Wilco) are moved out of his district.
That guy hs more issues than just the DUI arrest. Check out his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Schwertner
An this is after his staff has tried hard to put him in a good light!
He did vote in favor of the Lisa Torrey Smith Act (but so did every State Senator).
Thanks Doug,
I try not to lean on Tom W too much, but he is involved (The Red Line Parkway Initiative might be co-hosting since we will be checking out some potential RLPI alignments in the area). I was able to get some feedback from other AO members too.
I'll follow up with RBA to see if there are interested in participating or at least finding an experienced "sweeper" or two.
Darron
I'm in the process of organizing a social bike ride for Austin Outside to tour some of the bike/ped improvements we have made in Wilco and to visit our newly opened Lakeline Park. 10 miles, flat, mostly on bike infrastructure or neighborhoods.
Are there resources or advice for organizing a ride? Does Social Cycling Austin or Ride Bikes Austin have any best practices (or do you have contact I could reach out to?). I can always email their generic contact emails but I thought I'd ask here first.
Darron
The feedback period closes tomorrow. If you have time get in there and either fill out a survey or mark up the interactive map (you can up vote suggestions).
Thanks!
will Safe Streets Austin be as effective in promoting bicyclists' interests as Bike Austin was
Based on my recent experience with the Austin Outside Coalition (of which Bike Austin/SSA is a member), I would say definitely. This is mainly due to the bigger voice Active Transportation Groups can have vs bike advocacy alone. One of the benefits of Active Transportation is cities can not get away with just painting some lines on the road (or even worse, sharrows) and say "Look, we gave you some multi modal options!" because this type of bad infrastructure doesn't work in an Active Transportation context (wheel chairs, kids on training wheels, etc). Active Transportation Infrastructure is higher quality for all and thus better for cyclist too!
My 2¢
Edit to add: plus Hill Abell is the Safe Street Austin Board President, so I'm sure cycling is still well represented!
I'll play devil's advocate and say there are benefits to grouping bike and ped advocacy into a single "Active Transportation Advocacy". One big one is there is much less opposition to Active Transportation than there is to Cycling Specific proposals. It is more difficult for people and government leadership to say "No, I don't want children and the disabled to be able to get around their city better." vs "Bikes just need to follow existing laws!"
If you have a moment, please give CP feedback regarding cycling facilities. We are right in the middle of rewriting our Master Mobility Plan to include multi-modal transportation (before it was car oriented).
CP MMP feedback: https://engagekh.com/cedarparkmmp/cedarparkmmp-home/
The Active Transportation Advocates of Cedar Park has call to action on their main page highlighting projects of interest: https://www.wyld.net/atacp/
Just to close out he discussion. I ended up get a Rad Power Bikes RadWagon 4 and love it. I've been riding it for almost a year and have about 1000 miles on it. It works great for taking kids to/from school (faster than a car since I don't have to wait in a long line of cars). I put a big front rack on it for extra carrying capacity for backpacks, groceries, take out food, swimming pool tote bag, etc.
Looks like the city is going to pilot a bounty system.
"In an effort to help city employees cite vehicles for illegally blocking bike lanes, the Urban Transportation Commission unanimously approved a “bike lane bounty” program at its meeting Tuesday night." "The next step for the proposal is going before the Mobility Committee at their next meeting. If it is approved there, an official draft will be written."
I learned something interesting at the Cedar Park city council meeting last night. Apparent the state ban on cell phone use in a school zones is not enforceable if there are no signs specifically stating this. Good news is the council will look into getting signs in place and enforcing the law.
Example of the sign is you are interested:
http://onlinemanuals.txdot.gov/txdotman … _phone.htm
If you know of a municipality that doesn't have these signs in place contact them and let them know they can enforce the law. Should be a pretty easy sell since most people support child safety.
Thanks Doug, I dug into it a little more and our 39% with no location data (2012-2021) is on the high side. State wide only 27% of ped crashes didn't have location data in 2021, Wilco is about the same at 27% for 2021. Cedar Park is an outlier for Wilco with 89% no location data in 2021!
I plan on compiling a short presentation for city council to see if we can do a better job of recording this information with emphasis that we are the worst in recording this data in the area. The TxDOT database also included fatalities which tell some interesting stories as well. Countywide about 7% of ped crashes included a fatality, for vehicle crashes it is less than 1%.
Just near my house there has been one child per month hit walk/biking to school and yesterday we had our first death: https://www.kxan.com/news/local/william … -arrested/
There might be more incidents but the data is not that great. Looking at the TxDOT Crash Record Information System it appears 39% of pedestrian crashes and 24% of cyclist crashes do not have location data associated with them so it is difficult to pin point problem areas. By comparison, less than 5% of vehicle crashes have no location data. Does anyone know if this is typical for ped/cyclist crashes to have less location info?
I ended up riding the whole way since the weather was nice, but I'm still open to hear tips/tricks for taking a bike on the bus for next time.
I'm considering taking my bike into town Wednesday on either the MetroRail or Express Bus from Lakeline Station. Is there usually room? Other tips/tricks?
Darron wrote:"end of their neighborhood as they know it."
I didn't realize street striping and parking are what defines a neighborhood!
Turns out that Austin neighborhoods are made entirely of slippery slopes.
It's a wonder cars can even drive on them they are so slippery. Must be using some kind of special tires, like Goodyear® Hyperboles™ or similar.
"end of their neighborhood as they know it."
I didn't realize street striping and parking are what defines a neighborhood!
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