Bike Austin petitions for extending bike lanes

Cycling is always popular in Austin, but in the past few months, bicycles have assumed major importance as more and more Austinites ditch their cars to run errands and enjoy socially distanced exercise on two wheels. On June 11, City Council will be consider approving the creation of temporary protected bike lanes on Congress Avenue north of Riverside Drive in order to enable safer bicycling during the pandemic. The advocacy group Bike Austin is all in favor of this plan, of course; it just wants to take it a little further. The group has launched a petition urging the city not to stop the bike lanes at Third Street, as planned, but to extend them all the way to the Capitol, creating a protected north-south bicycling corridor. As of press time, more than 1,000 people had signed the petition.