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| From the City of Austin |
My first time in Paris, so many things impressed me. Among them were, of course, the food and the architecture—and that an entire street—l’Avenue de la Grande Armeé —was lined with boutiques of every major French bike maker and a couple of étrangers like Raleigh.
And the city’s Métro system seemed like a fleet of high-tech yachts compared to the only such system—New York’s—I knew at the time. The feature that seemed most other-worldly, though, was the interactive route maps in the major stations like Châtelet-Les Halles. Three decades before GPS, it was about as high-tech as urban subterranean navigation got: You pointed your finger to the name of a street or landmark and a string of lights marked the route and transfer (correspondance) points.
Now the city of Austin, Texas has something that reminds me of that old Paris map. The city’s Public Works and Transportation Departments have collaborated to create the ATX Walk Bike Roll to solicit ideas for improvements to the Lone Star capital’s bike and pedestrian infrastructure. To that end, they’ve designed an interactive map where residents can drop a “pin” wherever they find, say, “hilariously narrow “ or non-existent sidewalks or bike lanes that are more like “obstacle courses.”
If we had such a map here in New York, I—or any regular cyclist—alone could fill it. And to think this city is better than others in the US—including, possibly, Austin—for pedestrians and cyclists!
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