AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 The historic and infamous Sixth Street in Austin is on track to get a revamp. Many\u00a0people\u00a0across Texas have been there\u00a0at one point in their life. The city plans to expand the sidewalks to make more space for the thousands of people who pour into the area, but not everyone is happy about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adam Greenfield rides his bike to most places or uses public transportation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels amazing. It\u2019s great exercise. I feel more connected with the city,\u201d said Greenfield.<\/p>\n
Greenfield is the perfect example of what the city wants people to do as the capital\u2019s population\u00a0grows\u00a0and attracts more tourists. Data from the City of Austin\u00a0shows that by 2039 they want 50% of people walking, biking or taking transit to work. Austin released its new plans for Sixth\u00a0Street, but it had no bike lanes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The City of Austin asked the community what they wanted Sixth Street to look like. There were three options\u00a0presented to the public. The one with bike lanes\u00a0on both sides of the street received 50% support from community members. However, the city chose option three. It\u2019s the option without bike lanes, and\u00a0only 18% of Austinites supported it.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s pick provides the widest pedestrian zones, two westbound car\u00a0lanes, as well as a flexible curb access lane on one side of the street for passenger loading and deliveries.<\/p>\n
According to the City of Austin, anywhere between 8,000 and 25,000 people gather on Sixth Street\u00a0every day. City officials said they need to prioritize pedestrian space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really to have the widest possible pedestrian space because of the numbers of pedestrians\u00a0using Sixth Street,\u201d said Cody Stone, managing engineer for the City of Austin.<\/p>\n
The Austin Core Transportation Plan (ACT) is a long-term vision for enhancing transportation and mobility options in and around downtown. Austin lists \u201cproviding space for bicycles\u201d as one of its goals. In the plan, it lists four streets as priority projects. Sixth Street\u00a0is on the list.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
We asked the City of Austin why it chose option three. A spokesperson sent us the following statement:<\/p>\n
\u201dThe ACT Plan included three alternatives for 6th\u00a0Street that were evaluated as part of the preliminary engineering report. Alternative 1 and 2 include renderings of 6th\u00a0Street with bicycle lanes, while Alternative 3 did not include bicycle lanes. Alternative 3 was selected to move forward as it provides the widest pedestrian zones, supporting business vitality and ensuring safe movement of heavy foot traffic. There are multiple opportunities to add and improve the quality of bicycle lanes on other downtown streets to create a safer, more connected cyclist network while allowing Sixth Street to prioritize pedestrian space. City staff remain committed to providing important east\/west connectivity for cyclists through downtown, including considering bicycle lanes on adjacent streets identified as priority projects in the ACT Plan (5th, 7th, and 8th).”<\/p>\n
But people like Greenfield point to an inconsistent message from the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re saying to the city, follow your own plan,\u201d said Greenfield.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 The historic and infamous Sixth Street in Austin is on track to get a revamp.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1061,30626,30627,132,134,133,5604,5606,1570,223,1225,27,1569,42533,29499,26834,835],"class_list":["post-133861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-app-traffic-and-transit","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-what-you-need-to-know","tag-barbara-fox","tag-ctv","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-topic-latest-traffic-transit-news","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-transit","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}