Austin
Vision Zero Fail: Austin PD Wants to Ban People From Lingering By Busy Roads
The Austin Police Department doesn't seem to understand what Vision Zero is about. Instead of making roads safer by enforcing pedestrians' right of way or ticketing speeders, police are proposing to ban people from standing by dangerous, high-speed roads.
February 26, 2016
Austin: The Most Bike-Friendly City in Texas
I was in Austin a few months ago for the NACTO Designing Cities Conference. While in town I was able to put together this look at what the city is doing to improve bicycling, including the dazzling 3rd Street curb-protected bikeway. Also captured on camera: many bike paths along the Pedernales River, car-free nights on 6th street, and the ridiculously long Halloween Social Ride, which is an exhilarating weekly nighttime bicycle excursion with hundreds of people that manages to follow traffic laws to a T. (I did all 30 miles on a heavy B-Cycle -- there were quite a few hills!)
February 2, 2016
Check Out Austin’s New Polka-Dotted Intersection Neckdowns
Safer streets for pedestrians don't have to be expensive, or boring, for that matter. That's the lesson from Austin's new polka-dotted intersection neckdowns.
February 1, 2016
Highway Boondoggles: Texas State Highway 45 Southwest
In a new report, Highway Boondoggles 2 (the original came out in 2014), U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group teamed up to profile the most wasteful highway projects that state DOTs are building. Streetsblog will be serializing the case studies in the report. Today, we focus on a road project that risks contaminating the water supply in and around Austin, Texas.
January 21, 2016
Brutal Jaywalking Arrest in Austin Caught on Video
Austin police were captured on video beating a group of "jaywalkers" into submission late last Wednesday in an incident that reeks of racial profiling.
November 9, 2015
Technology Can Help People Go Car-Free, But Don’t Forget the Basics
Last week, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group released a ranking of the top 10 cities for "wired" transportation, where newer technologies like bike-share, real-time transit data, and app-based ride-hailing services are helping people get around without a car. After rating 70 metro areas based on the availability of 11 different technologies, Austin came out on top.
February 9, 2015
10 Cities That Are Getting “Wired Transportation” Right
Which cities are making it easy to catch the next bus without a long wait, hail a ride with an app, or hop on bike-share? According to a new ranking from the Frontier Group and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Austin is leading the pack when it comes to embracing technological innovation that helps people get around without being tethered to a car.
February 4, 2015
In Austin, Posts and Paint Bring a New Bike Bridge From Good to Great
Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.
August 29, 2014
Does It Take a Crime This Egregious to Hold Drivers Accountable?
A lively night out at one of the year’s most popular festivals turned to carnage last night as a driver rammed through barricades into a pedestrian-only zone at the South By Southwest music-and-film festival in Austin.
March 13, 2014
Austin: Where Crossing the Street Can Get You Cuffed and Detained
The above video shows Austin Police arresting jogger Amand Jo Stephen for jaywalking. It has been viewed more than 350,000 times since it was uploaded to YouTube last Thursday.
February 25, 2014