People packed a meeting Wednesday night at Pease Elementary School to discuss a controversial proposal by the city of Austin to create a Bicycle Boulevard. The proposal is to make either Nueces Street or Rio Grande from 2nd to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard more bicycle friendly.
It was the last of three public gatherings on the issue. This time instead of a meeting format like the other two public input meetings, city staffers opted for an Open House scenario.
"We need to look at the study. We're going to take 2 or 3 weeks to sit down with planning staff and other relevant staff at the city. We'll look at the results of the study, consider bicycle safety and mobility, consider motor vehicle and transit mobility, consider the land uses and their needs," said Annick Beaudet with the city of Austin.
On the walls of the gymnasium at Pease Elementary were artists renderings of potential traffic calming devices which could be used on a bicycle boulevard.
The results of a traffic impact study conducted by the city of Austin regarding the Bike Boulevard Project were also released at Wednesday night's Open House.
The city's traffic study shows in part that a Bicycle Boulevard would have minimal impact to traffic on Nueces Street.
"What I got from the study is that putting in bicycle boulevards, putting in traffic circles or pinch points, that is not going to affect how friendly Nueces is for cars," said Jessica Cassidy, an attorney and cyclist who works near Nueces.
Not everyone in attendance agreed. In fact a group recently organized an opposition to the proposed Bike Boulevard.
On Wednesday a group of downtown business and property owners calling themselves Keep Austin Moving.org unveiled an online petition the group is hoping will convince Austin city leaders to scrap the Bike Boulevard project.
"We'd like to see the city perform a detailed economic impact analysis study of the affects of these kinds of changes on our businesses before they do it," said Richard Runde, a commercial real estate business owner who is a member of Keep Austin Moving.org.
"Those who think that this has nothing to do with them are wrong," said Greg Copp, an Austin C.P.A. who works on Nueces. "They are planning on spending a lot of your money and it's been a Civics lesson for me."
City staffers told KVUE that the Nueces Bicycle Boulevard Project is far from a done deal.
Annick Beaudet with the city of Austin said staffers will take the next two to three weeks to mull over the public input before making a recommendation to city Boards and Commissions.
The Austin City Council gets the last say on the issue during a public hearing scheduled for May.
