Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Bike Lanes To Nowhere

Here again, for the umpteenth time, we present further evidence that Chaos' hometown was, is, and will forever remain The World Capital of Ignorance. This week's subject: bike lanes. The Capital, unsurprisingly, has fewer bike lanes than any city in Texas, itself not a bastion of progressivity. The lanes that do exist, furthermore, start and end abruptly, resulting in a tiny disconnected patchwork. A bike lane master plan was ginned up way back in 1976 but promptly discarded and never revived. Retrofitting streets for extra space for lanes is exceedingly expensive. The "car culture" causes hostility and outright danger to cyclists from aggressively ignorant morons (read the commments at the end). Oh, and the final insult: this city of more than 1.5 million has a bike lane coordinator (who, incidentally, is resigning after years of futile efforts) whose budget is...$60,000 per year. Chaos can only sigh as this benighted area continues to display the most astounding lack of understanding of reality. Meanwhile, the endless growth of strip malls, ugly tract housing, fast food joints, and freeways, lots and lots of freeways, continues apace.

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