Bicycle Austin email list

December 15, 2025

Sign up for this list and get a daily digest of all the posts made to the web forum.  So, you can post to the web forum, and those posts are pushed out to the email list, but the email list itself is read-only, you can't post to the email list by email.

This list is f**king historical.  Leopoldo Rodriguez started the original list on a UT server in 1994, specifically as a Critical Mass organizing list.  When he gave it up a few years later I took over, and the list broadened to be about local transpo cycling in general.  It was popular and lively until at least 2006.  A week before he passed in 2024, Chris Riley told me pointedly that the spirited discussions on the list inspired him to get active in cycling advocacy.   Riley is the person responsible for making it City policy to install the nice pedestrian crossings and the flexible poles to separate bike lanes from car lanes.  So, those nice facilities you see around town, can be traced back to the forum.  Be a part of history and go make a post on the forum.

Over time, traffic on the web forum died down to almost zero.  It might have been that people much preferred posting and replying by email rather than on the web, I don’t know.  The web forum is still alive though, and can still be posted to by anybody (including you, right now).  I hope you will.  And the posts still get pushed out to over 200 members on the email list, as of 12/25.

Some history of the list

As I mentioned above, the list was started on a UT server, and when the list owner gave it up, I took it over.  Also, as I mentioned, the list played a part in the pedestrian crossings and segregated bike lanes you see around town.

One of the active and spirited members was Mike Dahmus, who has a blog where he comments on local transportation politics, pulling no punches.  I’m a fan.

Circa 2008 I launched the web forum, with the idea that posts made to the forum would get automatically pushed to the email list.  The problem was that replies couldn't be made by email and wind up on the web (because I didn't have the time or expertise to code an email-to-web program).  Without that feature, replies would be disjointed, with different replies appearing on the web vs. email, depending on where people replied.  Someone might "reply" on the list, but if the web poster wasn't on the email list, they'd never see the reply.  So I required replies to web forum posts to be made on the web forum, but some members didn't like that.

I kept the ability to make an initial post directly by email, with all replies then being done by email.  By 2017 all posts had to start on the web forum.

The flack I got

But that infuriated at least one member who was livid about being polled about the rules, somehow.  This was a bike advocate whom I greatly respected, and his disapproval still stings.  And it still seems inappropriate:  People dinged me for making the rules, so I opened up the process, and I got dinged for that!  WTF?!

And despite putting the list rules in the hands of the members, I still got the “dictator” criticism, with one member saying, “You're a fascist who seems hell-bent on forcing people to experience the list/forum exactly the way you want it experienced.”

The member-approved rules (2010)

Here’s how I posted the list rules in 2010:

1. Reply to web posts on the web, not on the email list.  If a discussion is happening on the web forum, don't send your post directly to the email list.  Post it to the web, and let it flow to the list automatically.  If you post directly to the list, other discussion participants might not see your reply, since they might not be members of the list.
   
2. Quote no more than about five lines of what you're replying to, and no headers or footers.  Don't quote the whole thing you're replying to, and especially don't quote the whole digest.  Most members get the list in Digest form, and if you quote the entirety of what you're replying to, then the posts get annoyingly repeated throughout the digest.
   
3. Mail outside audiences separately.  Don't message the email list and a bunch of other people at the same time.  If you do, then when listmembers start doing Reply-All, all those other people have been made de-facto members of a list they never subscribed to.  If you want to send your message to the list and to others, send one message to the list, and another message to the others.
   
4. Max of two posts per day, per person.  That's for posts made directly to the list.  There's no maximum on posts to the web.
   
5. Don't send insulting or harassing messages directly to members of this list about something they posted to the list, even if you do it outside the list. If you feel this infringes on your right to do what you want off the list, you're absolutely right.  This list is a special club, and to be in this club you have to play by its rules.  If you don't like this restriction then you don't have to remain on the list.  We had to come up with this rule because of one problem member who was harassing other members, causing them to leave the list.

History of list rules

• October 2017:  Officially declared the list to be read-only.
• September 2013: Removed invitation to vote since polling is now closed, after no dissent from any listmember to closure.
• October 2010: Updated to reflect latest poll results
• August 2010: Added link to live poll
• July 2010: Clarified replying to web posts on the web, vs. on the email list.
• June 2010: Rewrote, and took out lots of pointers about things that haven't been problems for a long time.
• Feb. 2007: Clarified that insulting other listmembers isn't allowed.