BIKE: Moving back to Austin area

[Dennis Abbott]

OK, I am definitely headed back to Austin to work for Dell.  Let me
just say that the area around Dell now looks like someone took a Xerox
copy of the crappiest part of Houston and copied it over to Round
Rock.  What in the hell are they building all that road for?  Are they
going to look back in 5 years when petrol is $6 a gallon and say
"hmmm, maybe we misallocated a few resources over here".  From first
glance the area looks impossible to bicycle through daily.  I still
can't believe they built all that road and the possibility of
something as simple as a bus stop did not even occur to them.  Its not
even possible to drive a car to Dell, the parking is at its limit. 
While I poo pooed Wells Branch in my earlier post, it now looks like
the best option.  I can probably cut through Grand Avenue Parkway and
run up the feeder to Greenlawn.  Greenlawn has no shoulder and the
lane is not that wide either.  My best bet is to take the lane and
arrive at 7:00 instead of 8:00 in the morning.  Since I will be
temporary living for a while maybe I can find a good route before I
settle down.

Ya know they could have easily developed that area into a much higher
density mixed-use development.  The property value would have been
enormous over time.  What a missed oppurtunity.  That place was a
pasture 10 years ago.  There is absolutely no regionally-aligned
thought going into developing the Austin metro area.

That said I am just stuck on Austin.  I am mentally attached to the
area.  The first thing I am doing is packing my touring bike and doing
a trip from Blanco to Fredricksburg to Kerrville back to Blanco.  A
trip I took right before leaving Austin 2 years ago.  Something good
is going to come out of Peak Oil in Austin Texas and I plan on being
part of it.  The city has lost its spirit but its still humming along
right under the surface.

Dennis Abbott


On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 10:23:46 -0500 (CDT), cjwyche <cjwyche> wrote:
> @Chuck
> 
> Stop it. You've ruined my charade that I would be the ONLY
> nut to commute from 45th to RoundRock (and back) everyday.
> You are talking about 2hrs and 10 minutes EVERY(week)day out
> of your life listening to whizzing traffic. At my last job I
> biked 1hr 15 minutes EVERY(week)day, but had neighborhoods
> and a couple 3+minute hills + a radio to keep me interested
> and I still felt (but not much) the drain on my other
> extracurricular activities. 2+ hours? Every day! At least my
> son is out on his own now so neither he nor my wife would be
> really missing me.
> 
> How do you do it?
> 
> On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 Chuck_Thomas wrote:
> > Welcome back Dennis.  I too work at Dell Round Rock campus and live in
> > North Austin.  I bicycle commute 21 miles round trip everyday year
> > around. [SNIP]
> > We have two cars but the 2nd one is rarely used.  -chuck-
> -- 
> ge||ge   1/2 of cjwyche (see www.io.com/~cjwyche)
> 
> 


-- 
Dennis Abbott
902 Estes Dr
De Pere, WI 54115