The Legendary Amy Babich

Last update:  January 11, 2026

Amy Babich became a local celebrity from writing fiery anti-car and pro-bike letters to the Austin Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman in the 1990s and 2000s.  That garnered the attention of the media which ran interviews and articles about her.  She tried to parlay that attention into a run for City Council in order to try to implement her pro-bike ideas (I volunteered to make her campaign website), but was unsuccessful.

Coverage

• Profiled in Bike Like U Mean It documentary (2002)
• Interview in the Austin Chronicle (9/7/01)
• Run for City Council (2000)
• Some of her letters to the editor appear below (1996-2000)
• Profile in the Austin American-Statesman (2/8/99)
• Cover of the Austin Chronicle (10/17/97)

Amy’s runs for City Council

In 1999, Amy tried to run to challenge Jackie Goodman for Place 3, but the City Clerk invalidated over 100 of the citizen signatures on Amy’s petition because the signers didn’t include the word “Austin” in their address, even though they included their address and zip code.

In 2000 she got on the ballot in a new race. (I volunteered to make her campaign website.)  While she doesn’t get elected, she brings visibility to biking issues, and probably moves the other candidates closer to considering cyclists’ needs.  (Results: Will Wynn: 51%, Clare Barry 25%, Linda Curtis 13%, Amy Babich 6%, Chip Howe 5%.)

Letters defending her

Amy attracted critics annoyed at her pro-bike, car-free message, and they wrote their own letters to the editor to protest.  I wrote at least two letters defending her.  Here's one I could find: 6/30/00.

Amy’s letters to the Austin American-Statesman

These are all of Amy’s AAS letters that I could find, in the Newspapers.com archive.  The Austin Chronicle doesn’t archive letters from the 1990s and they’re not in the Newspapers.com database.

The damage cars do (7/15/96)

I find it odd to read essays by drivers on the fiscal irresponsibility of bicyclists who cost the taxpayers money by being injured in accidents. Bicycles cost the taxpayers nothing compared with what cars cost. Cars kill 40,000 Americans a year and maim a couple of million.

What do you suppose cars cost the taxpayers in medical expenses? Cars need huge amounts of road space. Cars are heavy and go fast; this causes a lot of road damage.

And cars must be disposed of. The United States throws away 9 million cars per year. And cars cause air pollution, which results in medical bills and lowered quality of life. All of us, even nondrivers, pay heavily for cars.

I know that Austinites are not ready to give up their cars or even drive them less. But perhaps Austinites would be willing to cut all city speed limits in half. (On any road with a current speed limit of 40 mph, the speed limit would become 20.) Drive your cars as much as you like, but drive them more slowly.

Driving cars at half their current speeds would drastically reduce collisions, deaths, injuries and monetary losses to taxpayers due to medical expenses and the costs of repairing roads. It would reduce damage to roads and wear and tear on your car. Your car will last longer driven half as fast.

It also would reduce the demand for road space. When cars travel more slowly, they do not need as much road space. It would relieve pollution, urban sprawl and (curiously enough) congestion.

So if you really want to save tax dollars, lives, landfill space and people's health, you should demand that Austin's speed limits be reduced by half. You may even find that (after a week or so of confusion) you actually get to work faster this way.

AMY BABICH
Austin, 78751

Trike tandems (8/25/96)

It's small wonder that so many old people here are depressed and ill; our car-driven society throws you away when you are too old to drive your car. Our streets are unsafe (due to fast car traffic) for old people to walk on. And because of our excessive reliance on cars, stores are often too far away for old people to walk to.

Our bus system is inadequate and hard to use; to catch a bus in Austin, a person must often sit for a half-hour to an hour on an open bench exposed to the merciless Texas sun.

I wish we had decent public transportation (and streetcars, which everyone likes better than buses). And I wish that car traffic would go much more slowly on many streets.

I'd like to start (or see someone else start) a service that takes old people out to do errands or just out for fun in recumbent tricycle tandems. A comparative youngster like myself (I am 43) would steer the tandem and provide most of the pedal power, but the oldster could pedal, too.

This would provide the oldster with aerobic exercise, which everyone needs to be healthy and happy. It would gradually make the oldster much stronger. If traffic went more slowly and we had sidewalks, these oldsters could walk on them once we built up their health on the trike tandems.

Amy Babich
Austin, TX 78751

Dangers of social driving (10/6/96)

Every day for at least a week, this newspaper prominently featured the drunken-driving trial of Cesilee Hyde. You say that the case shows “the dangers of social drinking”.

What the case really shows is the dangers of relying almost exclusively on cars for transportation. A sober driver is more dangerous than a drunken nondriver. If Austin had a decent public transportation system, Ms. Hyde could have taken the tram home from the bar, and all would have been well.

Driving, not drinking, is the main problem here.

Amy Babich
Austin, 78751

Dangerous transport (12/5/96)

I wish that Mothers Against Drunk Driving would change its name to just Mothers Against Driving. Drunken drivers are responsible for perhaps 40 percent of motor traffic fatalities. The other 60 percent are caused by sober drivers. This means that more people have lost a loved one to a sober driver than to a drunken driver.

The car-and-highway system of transportation is very dangerous. Wherever it is in place, with or without drinking, it kills many people.

Transportation reform will save far more lives than an anti-drunkenness campaign.

I am certainly not in favor of drunken driving. But sober driving won't make our streets safe. Only reduced speed limits, perhaps raising the driving age, and introduction of trains to replace cars will do that.

AMY BABICH
Austin

Water comes first (1/15/97)

I would like to commend City Council Member Daryl Slusher for proposing to close a road (three of six lanes on Southwest Parkway) to protect our water quality. It shows an admirable sense of proportion.

Gridlock on roads can be prevented by carpooling. If motorists selfishly refuse to carpool, why not let them sit in gridlock until they come to their senses? This seems much saner than poisoning our water to accommodate the whims of single-occupancy car drivers.

AMY BABICH
Austin

Fewer cars downtown (6/2/97)

May 25, you ran a front-page article about revitalizing Austin’s downtown in the manner of Long Beach. I recently read an article explaining why Long Beach is a great place to live without a car. The bicyclist cites “safe, attractive, frequent and friendly rail and bus service” and “safe and off-road bike trails.” He mentions that his groceries are delivered to his house by bicycle from a local store.

If you want to revitalize downtown Austin, you’ve got to get the cars off the streets. Downtown can’t be both a vital cultural center and a thoroughfare for cars to whiz through. Without bicycle paths and good public transit, downtown will not thrive, no matter how much money you spend on it.

When you plan to revitalize downtown, don't forget transportation.

Amy Babich
Austin

Abolish car allowance (8/14/97)

The American-Statesman reported that Austin taxpayers pay each Austin City Council member (except Bill Spelman) a car allowance of $300 per month, in addition to salary. This seems to me a very improper use of tax money.

Excessive reliance on cars is ruining our city. I am one of a small but growing minority of Austinites who does not have a car or driver's license, because of what the cars do to our air and our quality of life. Those of us who do not drive are persistently treated as second-class citizens.

The city always has money for cars, and never has money for sidewalks, streetcars and bike lanes.

I object strenuously to subsidizing the City Council's private cars. By doing so, I am paying to keep our cities' leaders addicted to cars and blind to the problems they cause. I am paying to cement my own second-class citizen status.

I urge the City Council to abolish this car subsidy. Please abolish every private car subsidy taxpayers are paying. We can earmark the money thus saved for sidewalks, traffic calming, bike lanes and streetcars.

AMY BABICH
Austin

Amy Babich’s letters to the Austin Chronicle

(Amy wrote a ton of letters to the Chronicle, but the Chronicle doesn't archive old letters and I can't find them in the Internet Archive.  As I ran across them from elsewhere, I'll add or list them here.

Parks, Rome, & Austin (4/14/00)

Dear Editor,

Austin's Smart Growth initiative, as applied to downtown, aims to make downtown more densely populated and full of pedestrians, like a European city. The famous European capitals were built before cars were invented. They worked well without cars. When cars appeared, some European cities allowed them downtown, and some didn't. Some European cities (e.g. Venice, Italy, and Zagreg, Croatia) have always had car-free centers. Others (e.g. Paris and Rome) have allowed cars everywhere.

The cities of Paris and Rome recently decided to ban cars from their centers. The main reason for this action is the terrible smog produced by many cars packed densely together. France and Italy, traditional worshippers of racecars, are now experimenting with nationwide car-free days. They're starting to see that cars are ruining their cities.

Here in Austin, people are planning to make downtown denser, but with cars everywhere. We will spend lots of money and fill our downtown with parking garages, in order to move more cars in and out. If the plan is successful, downtown Austin will come to resemble the smoggy, car-clogged centers of Paris and Rome. Then we can spend more money to move the cars out of downtown.

Isn't this a bit silly? Why not plan a car-free downtown now, instead of 20 years from now? If we must have parking garages, build them outside downtown and run a tram line or a Dillo to take motorists from their cars to downtown. Don't fill downtown with parking garages.

Downtown can be clean, pleasant, car-free, and pleasant to walk in. Or downtown can be hot, smoggy, and full of cars. We have choices. Let's choose wisely. Yours truly, Amy Babich

Car-free in Columbia • 12/1/00