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Vehicle Traffic
News 8's Bob Robuck explains how the city plans to discourage vehicle traffic on the street.
 
Public Opinion
Robuck explains the plan and what some like and don't like about it.
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Over the past two years, the City of Austin has been creating a citywide Bicycle Master Plan.
City officials solicited input from several hundred residents and came up with their final master plan in June of 2009.
The plan includes a project called the “Nueces Bicycle Boulevard,” which is set to open in late spring.
The boulevard is projected to cost about $350,000 and would include two segments. One segment is planned along Nueces between Guadalupe and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The other segment is planned along Nueces between Martin Luther King Boulevard and Third Street.
Essentially, the city created the plan with a series of “super routes” in mind. Those routes are being created with the intention of attracting less experienced cyclists who would feel more safe and comfortable travelling down these roads.
According to the plan, the super routes will be used as major transportation corridors.
The Nueces Bicycle Boulevard is part of the first phase in constructing the “spine” of the super route project. It will serve to link areas between downtown and the University of Texas.
According to the plan, super routes will be wider and other bicycle or pedestrian routes will feed into it.
Other phases will continue to add on to these primary routes and connect to other places around Austin.
The plan designates the Nueces Bicycle Boulevard as a multi-use path, which is a step away from creating an unshared, designated bikeway. According to the plan, the path will be shared by pedestrians and two-wheeled vehicles and light car traffic.
The entire super route network is projected to cost between $22 to $36 million.
Four public input meetings were held between March and April 2008 and approximately 125 people attended. The city also received over 1,000 comments via email and phone.
During the meetings, 104 people responded to a questionnaire, and 97 percent of those in attendance indicated they rode bicycles frequently to get around town.
When questioned, 98 percent of survey respondents said they would support accelerating improvements to the city’s bicycle infrastructure to address connectivity.
To view the public comments of the proposed plan click here and look at pages 275 through 310.
The city plans to complete the initial phase of super route improvements within five years or by the beginning of 2020.
The remaining second phase improvements are projected to be completed by 2030.
