CodeNEXT, Austin’s long-awaited rejiggering of the land development code, is dead. Mayor Steve Adler was the first politician to acknowledge the reality that “something has gone horribly wrong” and the project had been “poisoned” by “misinformation, hyperbole, fearmongering, and divisive rhetoric.” The news cycle moved from breaking news to roundups and roundups of takes, ...
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Lockless and Flockless: The State of Austin’s Dockless Vehicle Pilot Program
If you hadn’t heard, Austin has a newfangled pilot program for dockless bikes and scooters. This is awesome because scooters are awesome and bikes are awesome, and if you disagree, I’ll leave you in my scooter dust, at no more than 15 miles per hour. via GIPHY So, now that we’re a month into the city’s new dockless regulations, let’s... ...
What’s Next for Austin’s Dockless Urban Scooters? This Evil Highway Has Plans
Y’all probably already know me as Austin’s preeminent lobbyist for the rights of evil highways and endless gridlock everywhere, so I’m not gonna front — my strong preference is for all modes of transportation that don’t work on MoPac to be critically shunned like a new Maroon 5 record. But the dockless urban scooter is a special... ...
Austin Curiosities: Hyde Park’s Historic Blue Bonnet Court
Blue Bonnet Court, an unassuming building at 4407 Guadalupe Street sandwiched between the Cottonwood Condos and Shanghai Kate’s tattoo shop, is easy to miss unless you look twice. Still, over the last few years the little complex hidden in Hyde Park kept catching my eye, so I decided to get to the bottom of its... ...
Dockless scooters: the revolution is ours if we want it
We are on the verge of an urban revolution. A new device has revolutionized how we travel, making cars obsolete. Cities are going to re-architect themselves around the invention. The year, of course, is 2001 and the invention is the Segway. That revolution didn’t pan out. The Segway is now known mostly as a gag in a... ...