If we want, Houston can be bike-friendly
Another Houstonian is dead after trying to cross a street to a public park. The victim was killed just yards away from a painted white bike memorializing Dr. Marjorie Corcoran, a Rice professor killed at the same intersection just over a year ago. Numerous Houstonians, including Dr. Corcoran’s daughter, called for improvements following that incident.
Unfortunately, the lack of response by the city of Houston seemed to mirror the attitude of many Houstonians: heads shaken, thoughts and prayers sent, and the foregone conclusion that Houston is simply not a safe city for cyclists.
Unsurprisingly, this failure to act led to a second tragedy Tuesday at the same intersection, on what should have been a pleasant day for a woman and her spouse.
The intersection of Sunset and Main is a vital connection between Rice University and the Museum District, Midtown and Downtown.
Following the death of Dr. Corcoran, concerned Houstonians noted that traveling between Rice University and Hermann Park is an ordeal that requires crossing two directions of Metrorail traffic and 10 lanes of fast-moving vehicle traffic. If you wait for all the proper pedestrian signage, it can take more than five minutes to travel 50 yards. And despite being the recommended bike route in the area, there is no dedicated bicycle infrastructure; there is only a crosswalk.
Cycling in Houston shouldn’t be an act of bravery, and we shouldn’t need to depend on two tons of steel armor just to survive our commute.
Streets belong to people, not motor vehicles. Yet we continue to prioritize speeding traffic over the individuals who can’t afford cars, who don’t want to pollute the environment, or who simply enjoy the health benefits of active transportation.
Houston is supposed to be a city of problem-solving, and we have a serious problem when it comes to the way we interact with our streets. We have all of the resources to effect change, yet we continue to ignore this growing challenge. The longer we wait, the more we will lose as a city, and the more innocent people will lose their lives.
Houston is competing with other major cities to attract the best and brightest students and workers, and we are losing out. Earlier this year, Houston was the only one of the nation’s four biggest cities passed over by Amazon when considering where to build their new campus.
Mayor Sylvester Turner acknowledged this as “heartbreaking” and a “wake-up call.”
Each cyclist death in Houston is a more important wake-up call. In a time when Americans are choosing to drive less, a city must offer sustainable transportation options in addition to good jobs and a strong economy.
Americans will not choose to raise their families in a place that is failing to address transportation issues.
A community feels vibrant when people are outside. When was the last time you brought visitors to the Southwest Freeway to observe lines of stopped vehicles and inhale exhaust fumes? Likely, you prefer to visit Houston’s parks and bayous, or perhaps window-shop in an area with wide sidewalks and low speed limits.
Encouraging people to experience Houston from the person-scale — and putting actual changes in place to ensure they can do so safely — will do more to make a pleasant community than accepting a status quo in which people are afraid to travel outside of a vehicle.
The argument that people will not adopt active modes of transportation when they are available has been proved wrong. Cities such as Portland and Austin have seen the percentage of people who bike double, triple or more as they have built higher-comfort bike networks. The benefits of more people using active transportation extend even to those who won’t or can’t cycle or walk: less traffic, danger, noise and pollution.
Cities get what we build for; Houstonians are suffering from a century of urban design that favored sprawling roadways and personal automobiles. Each new infrastructure investment we pursue must reflect the kind of growth we want to see in our city.
For a city whose citizens have cited traffic as their top concern for the past five years, our local government is not using our transportation funds wisely. Astronomical sums are being spent expanding our freeways despite a wealth of research that adding lanes to highways increases congestion .
An effective way to reduce traffic for Houstonians is to make roads comfortable for those who don’t want to drive. The interesting thing about traffic is that when you are stuck in traffic, you are the traffic.
I want a Houston in which on a beautiful spring day, neighbors can enjoy the outdoors together, have lunch and return home safely by whatever mode of transport they choose. We just need to make it happen.