Dear UT: Pushing Out Pedicabs Doesn’t Help Traffic (or Anything)
Edit: The title has been altered from “Dear Austin” to “Dear UT”, as I’m told the real problem is with UT and their direction of traffic. See below for further details.
It’s been years now, and this is just silly. Pedicabs are an environmentally friendly way of moving people around short distances — such as the massive crowds that leave UT football games — without having to spew fumes into the air and consume gasoline. But our local government insists on routing traffic during UT football games in such a way that leaves no reasonable way for pedicabs to get to the stadium, instead accommodating cars at all costs and putting pedicabs in harms way. This is the situation during the UT football game out-crowd:
The only way to get to the stadium is to pedal up 15th street — in the way of every car trying to get across downtown on that very busy and very uphill street — instead of just getting a single lane down Trinity. And then there’s a blockage at every other turn too. Heck, even if we just had a reasonable lane on Red River, where there are no parking garages, we would have some normal way to work the game.
Dear Austin, please remedy. Make it possible for us to do our jobs and provide a service that has become known as part of Austin, rather than simply blocking us out. Don’t kowtow to the car.
According to one, more informed and less reactionary reader, this whole thing is at the fault more of UT, and less the city:
Dear UT, why don’t you do more to make it possible for people to get to football games and other events without using a car, sort of like what ACL and other city events are doing already? Here are a few ideas: shuttle buses, pedicabs, B-Cycle stations, bike parking. xxOO, me.
It’s their idea. They submit the traffic plan to the city for events. It’s my understanding that UT Athletics directs the planning for games and sporting events.
If I recall the discussion from the BAC meeting correctly, the traffic plan proposed by the UT goes to the Austin Center for Events in the city and is approved administratively if there is no stakeholder opposition. Who are the stakeholders on Trinity between 15th and MLK? Errr..
