El Paso Times: Get that darned bicycle outta here

Beto O’Rourke and his bike lanes — give it up, already. This here’s motor vehicle country, honk, honk! If we must have bike lanes, put them on new infrastructure designed for them. Don’t narrow the width of existing motor vehicle lanes. The South-West city rep, and some other dreamers around here, think El Paso needs a lot of designated bicycle lanes throughout our city streets. Yah, sure. Like the fiasco on Rushing Road in Northeast. They painted in some bike lanes there and nobody’s using them.

Plus, it’s turned that stretch into the road-rage capital of the city as drivers try to figure out which is the car lane and which is not. The latest wheedle is trying to turn part of Yandell Drive from a one-way to a two-way — and adding bike lanes. Last week, City Council voted unanimously to authorize a traffic study under the guise of a two-way street making the neighborhood safer.

Bike lanes are for quiet streets in Leave It To Beaverville. In El Paso, nobody goes 25 mph unless they’re speeding through a school zone — or stuck behind a (pah-tooh, pah-tooh) bicycle rider on Mesa, Dyer or Montana (ever see one stop at a stop sign?). Of course, you don’t dare try to ride a bike on Lee Treviño, not when it’s chock full of ticked-off motorists who were backed up on I-10 exits for three or more traffic-light changes. We are a city that is trying to make getting around much more efficient.

That’s why most people favor extensions southward of both Lee Treviño and Having a few big one-way, free-flowing streets, such as Yandell through Central El Paso, is a necessity and should not be looked at as a safety hazard. Two-way just means going fast in two directions. And bicycle lanes in El Paso just mean, “get the heck out of my way, pal.” OK, OK, it was a neat deal on Sundays last May with Beto’s ciclovias.

Some Central streets were closed to traffic from 7 to 11 a.m. and people could bike, roller blade, hike, walk, cartwheel, picnic on the curb and say, “Ah, what a fine morning it is.” It was real nice, as in, “Real nice parasol you have there, ma’am.” It was nice because people were out getting some fresh air and exercise at a time of year the pavement is not 125 degrees. But they did have to close off the streets for the cyclovias, otherwise the promenaders would have been mowed down by 10 o’clock.

Frankly, the built-up part of El Paso is just plain not bicycle friendly. It’s bicycle unfriendly. The good news for the pedal pushers is that neighborhoods amid the Northeast Plan will be bicycle friendly. Yes, factor in bike lanes on the brand-new streets there.

Yes, draw in some bike lanes in the planned new neighborhoods going up on the West Side, and maybe even on the flats of the far East Side (if you don’t get your spokes clogged with leftover 4th of July trash). There’s a nice bike path along the new extension of Resler as it heads to meet Trans Mountain on the Westside. That stretch was built with a bike path and plenty of room for motor vehicles, and walkers too. Great. But most of our streets were not. Honk, honk!

Joe Muench may be reached at jmuench@elpasotimes.com