Among one of the benefits of her pushing for the city to spend millions on bike trials and cyclobias, City of Brownsville Commissioner Rose Gowen has said it was to provide a safer environment for cyclists in the city.
Yet, a cursory review of accidents involving bike riders the past five years shows instead that there has been an increase of such accidents even with the trails.
The city has launched costly effort to provide protected lanes to cyclists on city streets including FM 802 and other high-density traffic thoroughfares such as Sixth Street among others.
Yet, as the chart shows at right, in 2011, before the hike-and-bike trails had been completed, there was one accident involving cyclists. In 2012, there were none reported. But after 2013, when the city launched its pro-cyclist efforts in earnest, the number of accidents involving cyclists began to soar.
It's only logical, said a Gowen critic, that when you increase the number of cyclists in the thoroughfares used by other traffic such as cars and trucks, it also increases the number of potential accidents that could happen.
FM 802, in particular, has implemented restricted bike lanes to accommodate cyclists. Yet, it is the area where more accidents have occurred. Why?
"The more bikes on the road, the more accidents you are going to have," said a motorist interviewed on that thoroughfare. "Many people use the bike lanes as turning lanes and that increases the likelihood of an accident involving cars and bikes. I've even caught myself doing it. It's just not safe."
10 comments:
I believe the problem is just too many cars. A simple solution would to limit the number of cars on the road. Have cars with even numbered license plates drive on one day and odd numbed can drive on the next day. If a person absolutely has to drive every day then they could pay a small fee of perhaps $300 a year which would go directly to the bike trail fund.
Diego is full of crap or on the payroll or Rose Gowen. Out community depends on auto transport to get to most retail businesses. Most of us don't shop downtown and can't ride bikes. We have great road humps along 6th and 7th street to protect bikers. But Rose Gowen seems to have forgotten the bike lanes along most streets that have been turned into turn lanes, or parking lanes. In front of Vela College Prep Middle School or Burns College Prep Elementary School on any day, the bike lanes are blocked by parked cars...waiting for their College Prep students. Go in to Rose Gowen's Rio Viejo neighborhood and the bike lanes are parking lanes for residents, etc. We have used these humps to protect bikers downtown.....why no protect bike lanes in other places in the city. My vote will go Erasmo...
I don't know how stupid you are but the graph I see says it went down to 9 in 2016.
This stupid report, which has as much information as a kindergarten reading book.
Show me number of cyclist vs accidents, how many cyclist were in those years. Then show me % changes.
Also, show me of those accidents, how many were automobile faults? how many were cyclist faults?
Were those accidents between two bicycles?
pathetic reporting once again.
Shut the fuck up , Diego! You ignorant junkie! Fuck you and your bike trails, pendejo !
You got that right, just voted for Castro and Garza, We had had enough of Cyclovias and bike lanes on city streets. Bikes belongs on the bike trails not on city streets, we are not in Europe, be realistic.
The actual hike and bike trails are GREAT!!!
The trail that is the old converted railway that runs from just south of 511 all the way to down town is used by many bikers, runners and walkers. I think that some of the lights and pavement needs a little maintenance.
Quotes in article appear to admit significant liability. This community has more important issues to deal with than bicycles and shopping bags.
I personally have seen two car accidents (car hitting other car) just in the last 7 days. In one accidnt, the driver ran a red light and rammed into another car coming from the side. In the other, some drunk driver skidded on the road bashing into parked cars along the side and finally crashed into a tree. People in cars are dangerous. Cars hit other cars, cars hit little kids in the street, cars crash into buses, cars hit trucks, cars crash into things that aren't even moving like trees and kill their drivers, cars hit people on on motorcycles, cars hit people on bikes. Cars hit other cars even when they try to park. It's a regular demolition derby. The bikers aren't the problem.
We need more sidewalks and marked trails, not less of them. For comparison, would you kindly list the number of pedestrians hit by cars during the same time frame, and the number of car-to-car accidents in Brownsville too?
What this election will resoundly prove is, do not fuck with the bike trails.
Thousands of people use the trails. The trails keep people and kids safe, and are one of the truly nice things Brownsville has.
Erasmo is losing so hard. Nothing is funnier than an obese fatass attacking healthy and athletic people and threatening to take away their trails.
Erasmo decided to make his campaign a one-issue campaign, but he sure chose the wrong fucking issue TBH. I already voted for Gowen, our trails are worth protecting.
We don't need any more lane reductions on our streets, I don't have a problem with people and their bicycles. Our city is growing in case no-one noticed, the bikes trails were developed for those who use them. I have noticed people on their bikes riding on the traffic lane's when they have a designated bike lanes to use. I've never been able to understand why people don't have a vision of the future of our city. Our city has always had a great potential to be a great city, we have so many resources. But for some reason our citizens don't is it, wake up Brownsville.
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