Austin Needs More Bicycle Lanes

In his blog post, “Gimme Gimme Gimme – Some More Bike Lanes Please!!!,” T explains the positive and negative aspects of  making Austin a more, “bike[r] friendly city.” T discusses how Austin is in fact a great city to bike in, “in some areas, but Austin is a difficult city to bike due to a lack of bike lanes.” T also explains that the Austin Police Department (APD) has, “recently been using their power to give out tickets to cyclists.” The APD made it very clear that cyclists are to follow every law that motorists do as long as they are biking out on public roads. T also discusses that the APD may be taking ticketing and forcing cyclists to follow the law a bit too seriously – considering APD officer, “Jason Mistric,” wants cyclists arrested instead of just ticketed if they run red lights. Although, “the APD says they want motorists to respect cyclists, and they want cyclists to be safe.” T’s proposal is to have Austin provide bike lanes all over, to make cyclists and motorists the safest they can be.

T uses three different sources of evidentiary support to back up his ideas. First, he uses information from the League of American Bicyclists. Second he states a quote explaining the APD’s expectations of cyclists who bike out on public roads. Finally, T uses information from an article, “Critical Mass Arrests Pride or Policy,” from the Austin Chronicle to explain the arrests of two cyclists for not stopping at a red light.

Over all the post is well written, although I believe it is difficult to follow the organization of his ideas. I also found myself doing additional research to understand some of the ideas he was trying to explain. The only addition I would add to T’s post, would be to explain in more detail why exactly Austin needs more bike lanes. For example, he could discuss how the city of Austin surrounds a very large Texas university (The University of Texas as Austin). On many college campuses, students bike a lot. This is a huge incentive for there to be more bike lanes. Not to mention, biking is much more environmental friendly than taking your car to class or work.