I Am In Like With My Bike

Father Christmas wants to be looking at the rapha catalogue while thinking about me.

onedropcolors:

Cyclists oppose new road ban in Manor

City officials cite safety concerns on Blake Manor Road.

By Suzannah Gonzales
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, November 19, 2009

MANOR — Avid cyclist Sajeewa Chandrasoma occasionally does group rides along Brenham Street, also known as Blake Manor Road.

But soon he won’t be able to.

Chandrasoma, a Manor resident, is among area cyclists who oppose a city ordinance prohibiting bicycles on the road, arguing that bicyclists have rights, too. City officials say the ordinance addresses concerns they had about safety and liability.

“To me, it’s very discriminatory,” said Chandrasoma, adding that he has been on worse roads. “They just singled out cyclist.”

Chandrasoma showed up at a City Council meeting Wednesday evening to protest the ordinance, but the meeting was canceled because there was no quorum.

Other bicyclists say that the ordinance sets a bad precedent and that the city is moving in the wrong direction.

The right direction, said Mark Stine of the statewide advocacy group BikeTexas, would be to put in place infrastructure, signs and education so that bicycles and cars can share the road.

“It ends up treating bicyclists as second-class citizens if they don’t have access to go where they need to go,” said Tom Wald, executive director of the Austin-based League of Bicycling Voters. “It’s a free country. It’s a public road.”

On Oct. 21, the City Council unanimously passed an ordinance that makes it illegal to ride a bicycle on the city’s approximately half-mile portion of Brenham Street, or Blake Manor Road, east of FM 973 to the city limits. This includes any shoulder or right of way along the road, according to the ordinance. Another portion of the road is in Travis County but in Austin’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, city officials said.

Enforcement will begin at the end of the month at the earliest, Manor City Manager Phil Tate said. Violating the ordinance will be a misdemeanor subject to a fine of up to $200, according to the ordinance.

The two-lane road is narrow, has heavy traffic and is in bad shape with huge cracks, Tate said.

The “City Council has found that prohibiting the use of bicycles on Brenham Street east of FM 973 to the City limits is necessary to protect the public from harm,” the ordinance says.

“It’s a poor place to be riding bicycles,” Tate said. There are several other roads where bicyclists can ride, he said.

Tate said there are no immediate plans to repave or rebuild the road.

The ordinance follows the council’s Oct. 7 consideration of a $250,000 claim by Alejandra Cornelius, who was injured in a bicycle accident on the road. The council denied the claim because the accident occurred outside Manor’s jurisdiction, but it forced officials to look at bicycling in the city, Tate said.

In the past year, there have been seven major traffic accidents on the road, and one person died, he said.

They shouldn’t ban cyclists, they should put in a bike lane and teach people how to pay attention while they’re driving.