BIKE: Small but significant error in "Seeing the beauty of a thinner Shoal Creek"

[Patrick Goetz]

Hi, Ben -

Having sat through several public hearings on the Shoal Creek Blvd. 
(SCB) debacle, I feel compelled to correct a small but significant error 
in your article 
(http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/03/21wear.html). 


You write

   "So about five years ago, when the city striped the road with bike 
lanes and declared parking off limits, the neighborhood revolted."

Actually, the city only planned to prohibit parking on *one* side of the 
road, which would have afforded enough space to allow for car-free bike 
lanes on both sides. (And the bike lanes were never actually striped.)

Given the small number of cars parked on SCB at any given time, this 
would have provided more than adequate on-street parking for area 
residents.   Furthermore, a large public hearing held by the Urban 
Transportation Commission at that time revealed that only a small number 
of neighbors (generally those who had a beef with bicyclists using SBC 
in the first place - less than 5 out of around 100 speakers) "revolted" 
against not being allowed to park on both sides of the street, and were 
quite belligerent about asserting that it was "their" road. (One 
crankster insisted that he had been forced to pay for the roadway 
construction when he purchased his house, hence had the right to 
determine how the roadway should be used.)  Most neighbors were only 
interested in slowing down traffic on the street and would have been 
more than happy with a few mid-road traffic circles (see Dawson for an 
example of such a thing) as an addendum to the city's original plan. 
According to the city, however, no monies were available to add traffic 
calming to the plan.

The current solution satisfies only the small minority of SCB residents 
who want parking and no bicyclists.  A few quick observations:

1. Now that the city has put in "parking lanes", many more people are 
parking on the street than before; i.e. as far as I can tell, people who 
were parking in their own driveway are now parking on the street 
instead.  Consequently bicyclists must now more frequently share a 10ft 
lane with motor vehicles.  The city is apparently planning to use 
bicyclist roadkill as a traffic calming device.

2. The "curb extenstions" are hardly that -- they're traffic circles 
stuck right in the middle of what used to be bike lanes, and unless the 
city plans to illuminate them at night (no such plans exist, as far as I 
know), they present a significant safety hazard to unsuspecting 
bicyclists using the roadway.

3. For many years I've used SBC as a route to introduce inexperienced 
bicyclists to the joys of bicycle commuting.  I don't feel like I can do 
that any more.  Being channeled directly into the path of cars (which is 
what the barriers in the former bike lanes do) is stressful and 
dangerous.  All this will do is convince potential bicycle commuters 
that bicycle commuting is too dangerous for them.

4. The idea that putting barriers on the side of the road slows down 
traffic is the most absurd thing I've ever heard.  If anything, it turns 
Shoal Creek into more of a Monte Carlo raceway that it was before.  I 
drove down SBC last week in a car and -- if there hadn't been a Chevy 
suburban driving down the middle of the bike lane -- oops, I meant 
improved shoulder -- in front of me (no, I'm not making this up), it 
would have been wicked fun to navigate the road at 70mph.

5. Yes, every motor vehicle I observed swerved well into the "improved 
shoulders" at every curve on SBC.  The previously mentioned Suburban, 
whom I followed for about a mile, drove almost exclusively on the 
"shoulder", veering around the bicycle barriers whenever necessary.

6. As far as I can tell, the city is spending $300,000 to implement a 
plan which meets the approval of 5% of SBC neighbors (the ones who hate 
seeing bikes on "their" street) and 0% of bicyclists.  If the plan is to 
kill and injure as many bicyclists as possible, then it looks like it's 
going to be a big success.  I worry, however, about potential liability 
that the city might face after someone is killed by all this nonesense.

7. One of the SBC residents antagonistic to bicyclists (they get in the 
way of his 6 or 7 private motor vehicles, some of which he likes to 
store on the street) has been particularly persistent in emailing city 
council/staff in addition to anonymously taunting bicyclists now and 
again on the bicycle listserv.  At various times he's sent email to city 
council accusing bicyclists of vandalizing his house, and so on.  It's 
amazing to me that the city is spending $300K to bend over backwards to 
satisfy this individual (and perhaps 2 or 3 others) at the expense of 
almost everyone else.  This should be mind boggling, but of course is 
the standard modus operandi of government in the great state of Texas. 
(See CAMPO's toll road plan for a similar example.)