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Sebastian Wren wrote:
>
> I personally see this parking-next-to-bike lanes arrangement as a fairly
> reasonable compromise. The cars have room to park; the bicycles have a
> clearly marked lane... So I don't see the liability problem.
>
Sorry, I thought you were talking about parking IN the bike lane, which
is how Shoal Creek is set up. Your other example, Exposition, also
allowed parking in the bike lanes until about 9 months ago. This was
re-striped with no-parking bike lanes and a parking lane on just one
side of the street (i.e. what was originally planned for Shoal Creek).
The Exposition re-striping lead to a similar dust-up with some local
neighbors upset about the loss of on-street parking, including one
prominent Exposition resident threatening to run over bicyclists when
she saw them (probably not the smartest thing to say to someone writing
an article for the Statesman). Having learned from the Shoal Creek
debacle, both staff and city council took a no nonsense approach to
public safety and approved the parking reduction on Exposition over the
objections of some residents.
> Eliminating parking to make room for bikes just isn't good politics. If
> every new bike lane requires the elimination of on-street parking, then
> I think we'll get some strong push-back from drivers who don't want any
> more bike lanes.
However absolutely necessary when street real estate is limited. Note
that Guadalupe, too, only allows for parking on one side of the street.
Most such plans call for the elimination of parking on one side of the
street to allow for bike lanes, and this was sufficient to lead to a
5-year long battle which ended up costing the city at least 5 million
dollars. I recall one Shoal Creek resident arguing that having parking
only on one side of the street was completely unacceptable because when
his parents came to visit, they would have to park across the street
from his house and walk across Shoal Creek Blvd., which would mean that
they probably wouldn't visit their grandkids any more (no, I'm not
making this up). At the time, city council bought this tripe and forced
years study and funding for alternative approaches on the transportation
department (I'm looking at you, Jackie Goodman). Millions of dollars
later, we ended up with almost exactly the same striping that was there
previously. Your tax dollars at work.
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