The Shoal Creek Debacle Keeps Rolling On

There was a public meeting on Wednesday night about the Shoal Creek Debacle in which many previously uninformed local residents complained about curb extensions and cyclists riding too close to the line (forced to do so, by the way, by the fact that there are CARS PARKED IN WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BIKE LANE).

I just posted the following to the allandale yahoo group, and thought it might have some general interest:

— In allandale@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Frock wrote:
>I, like Rhonda, wonder about those who
> don’t live here who have come out swinging. Is it the cyclists who really
> wanted a “veloway” through our neighborhood from 38th to Foster?
That’s one way to put it.
Another way to put it is that Shoal Creek Boulevard is the most important route for bicycle commuting in the city. It forms the spine of the main route from points northwest (disproportionately recent residential growth) to the center-city and vice-versa; and serves as the bicyclist equivalent to at least Burnet Road, if not Mopac.

Yes, a bunch of people also ride this road for fun. And I’m as frustrated as you are (probably more) when the brightly-plumaged folks out for a training ride treat stop signs as matador capes.

But every day during rush hour you’ll also see dozens of cyclists clearly heading to or from work. This isn’t because they want to turn your neighborhood into a “veloway”; it’s because SCB is the recommended route for people who, in their cars, would be using Burnet or Mopac. And this is the way it’s SUPPOSED to work – you’re not supposed to turn your major arterials into cycling routes, you’re supposed to find a lower-traffic parallel road which can feasibly serve the same purpose.

Without SCB functioning as a major “cyclist artery”, you’d be complaining about these same cyclists slowing you down on Burnet Road.

The city’s legitimate interest in promoting bicycling as transportation requires that some routes like SCB be “major bicycling routes”, which implies that the interests of cyclists should AT A BARE MINIUM be considered above both-sides on-street parking. The city council failed miserably in this case in understanding that those two interests could not be served by a compromise solution; and the neighborhood has failed miserably in understanding that the parking-on-one-side solution already represented a signficant compromise for the bicycling interests, since it still required riding slightly in the “door zone” on the parking-allowed side of the street.

And, by the way, “through our neighborhood” smacks of an ‘ownership’ of SCB which isn’t supported by the facts. Even when misclassified as a residential collector, it’s still “owned” by the city, and the street MUST serve the interests of people who don’t live on that street (or even in that neighborhood). Even if SCB was misclassified all the way down to “residential street”, no automatic right to park in front of your house is conveyed – I have to pay for a permit to park on my street; and some residential streets in my area have large sections where parking is only allowed on one side.
– MD