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!)

The timing was excellent, because near the end of 2015 the League of American Bicyclists declared Austin a gold status bike-friendly city, the first city in Texas to claim the honor. So let Streetfilms take you on a tour of the bike lanes, greenways, floating bridges, and bike-friendliness of Austin.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Moving Toward Bike Boulevards in Austin, Texas

By Sarah Goodyear |
More communities around the country are talking about creating bike boulevards (see the recent Streetfilm asking why they haven’t yet been proposed in New York). But as Austin on Two Wheels reports, it’s not always easy to convince property owners that these enhanced bike facilities (read more about them here) are the right thing for […]

Four Cities Race to Finish the Country’s First Protected Intersection

By Michael Andersen |
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. Sometimes, change builds up for years. And sometimes, it bursts. Fifteen months after American bikeway designer Nick Falbo coined the phrase “protected intersection” to refer to a Dutch-style intersection between two streets […]

How Brownsville, Texas, Is Using Bikes to Address Social Problems

By Angie Schmitt |
This post is part of a series featuring stories and research that will be presented at the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference September 8-11 in Pittsburgh. Brownsville, a Texas border town, is frequently cited as one of the poorest cities in the country. It also has one of the highest obesity rates. But local officials have taken on some of the city’s […]

Four Nice Touches in U.S. DOT’s New “Mayors’ Challenge” for Bike Safety

By Michael Andersen |
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. There’s a difference between bike-safety warnings that focus on blaming victims and warnings that recommend actual systemic improvements. The launch of a Mayors’ Challenge for Safer People, Safer Streets by U.S. Secretary […]