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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Now Leeser Is the Giant Pothole for El Paso Bicyclers

It's confusing why Mayor Leeser was so concerned about spending federal money on a new bike share program that he deleted an item discussing that new program from yesterday's City Council meeting. Read KVIA's report

One city staffer with the Sustainability department said that the "Mayor may have been confused about the deletion and then addition of the $100,000 for the feasibility study which was the only difference in the presentation from the last time he saw it (per direction from the City Manager). He wanted more information about why we are providing funding for the start-up operation and maintenance (O & M), though I’m a little confused because he saw the entire presentation yesterday.

"He believed that the larger system ($1.9 million) did not budget for any O & M, though the MPO had presented that proposal and had intended to cover a year of O & M costs. Seems the item was deleted from today’s agenda because he wanted more discussion on it before action was taken."

The question is why does the Mayor want more discussion? We've been over this issue now many times. Perhaps pitching a bike share program to a car dealer is just doomed to failure from the get go.

Here's Sustainability's presentation:




The smaller bike share program is on the agenda of this Friday's Transportation Policy Board meeting. However, it's unlikely to be discussed until the El Paso City Council decides what it will do.

More and more communities across the country are becoming bike friendly including Fort Worth with its bike share program.

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