Austin just made it illegal to park in bike lanes

Austin City Council has approved a rule making it illegal to park in a bike lane.

Thursday’s unanimous vote means violators will be ticketed and fined. Fines could range from $50 to $300.

Council Member Paige Ellis said several people in the community had expressed concerns about bicycle safety on busy downtown roads. If a car is in a protected lane, the cyclist is forced onto sidewalks or traffic, putting the cyclist, drivers and others at risk.

Ellis said the change makes it safer for everyone.

“What you see, especially in the downtown area, is food delivery drivers or other sorts of ride-share services stopping in those bike lanes,” she said. “And it’s not that we don’t want people to be able to do these services, we need those as well, but it’s creating unsafe conditions for cyclists.”

It’s been more than 15 years since most of the city code on parking was last amended. Since then, the way people travel downtown has changed. Food delivery and ride-hailing, like Uber and Lyft, have become more popular. The city has also become a testing ground for electric and driverless vehicles.

City staff said the goal was to bring Austin’s code into the 21st century.

“It really is a modernization of the code to reflect the operations today and what we anticipate moving forward,” Lewis Leff, assistant director with the city’s Transportation and Public Works Department, said.

While Council Member Chito Vela supported the rule change, he said more has to be done to address cyclist safety as a whole.

“Ultimately, if we really want to protect riders and make sure that people are not parking in the bike lane, we have to build infrastructure that physically prevents people from entering the bike lane,” Vela said. “Long-term, I think that’s the solution. I don’t think we can enforce our way out of this.”

As part of the changes, the city could also mail citations, rather than leaving them on windshields.

Vela said he was concerned about how that could disproportionately impact working people, like Uber drivers or others going downtown for a quick errand. He also said citations could get lost in the mail.

“I’m very hesitant to move away from the traditional method of citing someone and moving to a mail model,” he said. “I don’t want this to be a tax on working-class people who are coming downtown.”

The city will come back in July with more information on how the mailing program will work.

To prevent cars blocking bike lanes, the city will look at adding signs, painted markings and barriers. It will take three months to roll out and educate people about the changes, city officials said.

The city is also conducting a study looking at how to improve curbside spaces for deliveries.

This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting partnership with KUT.

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