Some Notes on Bicycling

I can feel it. The weather is about to turn. Warm spring days are fast upon us. Time to get out the bikes.

Green Leaf Pedicab has noticed it too. I met with the owner Charles Lauser this week and he let me know that Green Leaf Pedicab will start up again on March 1. They are the bicycle cabs, mostly seen Downtown. It is a great, fun and easy way to get around Downtown. If you see them on the street, ask for a ride and don't forget to tip!

Charles is also offering a Bicycling Course at the Valle Verde EPCC Campus. The course will cover the practice of the correct use of gears, proper brake usage and balance techniques, basic bicycle maintenance and bicycle traffic laws. To sign up, call Charles at 422-0866.

As you know, we've been trying to make it easier for people to choose bicycling as a commuter option, which means making sure that all the infrastructure is there to support that choice. Bike lanes, bike parking, bike signage...

A couple months ago, a friend of mine who is an avid cyclist came up to me with a bunch of ideas about how we could improve cycling conditions in El Paso. He suggested that we require bicycle parking at all new commercial properties. I was excited to report to him that we already required this in the new zoning code that we passed in November of 2007. He didn’t believe it. He said he had not seen any new bicycle parking in the city and asked that I confirm that we were actually doing this.

I asked City Staff to review whether or not we were in fact requiring bicycle parking per our code. He provided me with a list of all the detailed site plans passed since then and whether or not they required bike parking. This is only a small portion of permits where we would require bike parking. He sent out inspectors to review whether or not there was actually bike parking at those locations.

Based on that initial audit, they were only able to find bike parking at 10 locations. My assistant Judy also went and randomly looked at 8 locations where bike parking was required and did not find bike parking at any of these locations.

So lesson learned is that policy is only as good as its implementation. Staff has now changed up the process to ensure that bike parking is in place before we issue certificates of occupancy. They are continuing their audit of all new construction done since 2007 to make sure that it has adequate bike parking.