Bicycling – Fort Worth vs. Austin

My friend Bernie has written the start of what will likely be an interesting series of posts comparing Fort Worth and Austin on his new bicycling blog, February Legs:

Now, Fort Worth has a lot of shortcomings when it comes to integrating bicycles into the city’s transportation system… a LOT of shortcomings (are you listening, Joel?). But the fact is, even without any appreciable help from transportation planners, Fort Worth is still a fairly easy town to get around by bicycle if you know what you’re doing. The town is mostly compact, the Trinity Trail system reaches several major business and residential areas, and there are lots of roads with reasonably safe traffic volume. The drivers are even friendlier in Fort Worth than in any other city I’ve ridden in (which is all of the big ones).

Fort Worth does NOT, however, have the kind of infrastructure it needs to make new riders feel comfortable trying bicycling as a means of everyday transportation. There’s no decent bike parking at major employment or shopping centers, no bike lanes, very few parked routes, and since much of the town’s cycling is done on the trails and therefore “out of sight,” motorist awareness of cyclists is very low.

Click on through to read the rest of the post. Here’s my own thoughts on the subject, which I used as a comment over on February Legs:

I do agree that Fort Worth drivers, on the whole, seem to be friendlier. There are several streets around here that’d be deadly to ride on, but a lot of good alternatives that are pleasant as well.

Fort Worth’s bike route network is woefully undercooked compared to Austin’s. At its most extensive, in the Near Southside, it’s at least helpful in getting awareness of cycling to drivers, though I don’t follow all the routes as some of them are a bit too high-speed-traffic-y for my tastes (I’ll usually take 6th Avenue rather than Fairmount/Willing through Fairmount and Ryan Place, even though Fairmount/Willing is the bike route. There are more stop signs on 6th, but it’s narrower with fewer, slower cars. Ditto north of Rosedale headed to Downtown – I’ll take College or Lipscomb rather than Jennings for the same reasons).

One thing that’s obvious walking around urban Austin that they do a lot better than we do: bike parking. I passed more, better bike racks in Austin than I ever have in Fort Worth. I think the 2nd Street District alone has more bike racks than Downtown Fort Worth’s districts combined. Austin seems happy with just installing a zillion of the simple, classic inverted U rack, where we seem to be dead set on installing a handful of the cute but less functional “Texas star” things that don’t even look like bike racks. I think that’s one of our biggest failings – those racks might look pretty to the tourists but one or two of them doesn’t cut it. Bike use has been even more prolific than before here around Magnolia after Spiral Diner and Panther City Bikes installed those long rows of simple racks in front of their building at 6th & Magnolia. Last time I was there, and locked my bike to the new racks, I noticed several bikes in the new racks and none at all in the Texas star racks.

And we do lack the sort of infrastructure that would get newer riders out on the streets, like bike lanes. I hope the forthcoming Magnolia Avenue re-striping will set a precedent for getting more bike lanes on urban Fort Worth streets.