John Whitmire made a strong-mayor decision in late March to remove bicycle lanes from Austin Street in Midtown — in the name of public safety, of course — and the choice did not sit well with some residents who would like another option besides driving around the fourth-largest city in America.
There are multiple arguments for and against protected bike lanes. They block a training area for Fire Station No. 7 on Elgin Street and create hazards for emergency vehicles, Whitmire claims. Cyclists occasionally ride in large packs in the dark, cutting through neighborhoods and making it difficult for motorists and pedestrians to navigate one-way streets. Business owners say delivery trucks have difficulty accessing their entrances.
On the other hand, cyclists say the protected bike lanes offer a transportation option for school children and serve as an alternate commute solution so they don’t have to traverse pothole-ridden streets. Some people can’t afford a car or have ditched it for environmental reasons.
And then there’s the politics of it all. Whitmire, who was elected mayor in December 2023 after a 50-year career as a state legislator, has fought publicly with elected officials and dismissed policies enacted prior to his tenure, leading some to speculate that ripping up the bike lanes was a metaphorical middle finger to the county commissioner and late Mayor Sylvester Turner who installed them.
Several argued in a city council meeting last week that Whitmire’s decision appears to be unilateral, made with no input from residents or council members. Residents last week affixed stickers to the signs along Austin Street that declared the bike lanes closed, reading, “Because bicycles make the mayor so mad” and, “Because Mayor Whitmire is a jerk.” Whitmire’s chief communications officer Mary Benton said Friday he was unavailable for an interview. The mayor, however, justified his decision in last week’s council meeting.
“We don’t just do things to aggravate people or create an issue,” he said. “We’re solving problems.”
The $2 million Austin Street bikeway was funded by Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis’ office in partnership with then-Mayor Turner and installed in 2020. Ellis said in a public statement last week that he was deeply disappointed by Whitmire’s decision to remove the lanes.
“Safe, accessible streets are essential to a healthy, thriving city,” the commissioner said. “When we make it easier for people to walk, bike, or use public transportation, we create stronger, more connected communities, improve air quality and save lives.”
Whitmire said that when the project was implemented five years ago, Turner’s administration ignored significant community pushback about the removal of residential street parking and trash container collection areas. Council Member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, who represents Midtown, said the project prioritized “pass-through” cyclists who don’t live in the area.
Houston is considered a car-centric city with its sprawling layout and massive freeway system, but former Mayor Turner was receptive to public transportation upgrades and creating walkable, bikeable areas. Whitmire to date has been an adversary to transportation alternatives, criticizing the METRO for excessive bureaucracy, high salaries and declining ridership but saying he wants to improve efficiency.
Will Whitmire ever make peace with the cyclists, pedestrians and public transportation riders? Does he even want to?
After last week’s council meeting, Whitmire hinted at plans for a one-way bike lane to match the flow of car traffic on Austin Street. Cyclists would be separated from vehicles by a stripe of paint rather than concrete barriers, similar to the bike lane on Heights Boulevard. The mayor has offered no timeline of when this would happen or any costs associated with it.
In an April 2 interview on the “Hello Houston” radio show, Whitmire said his decision to remove the Austin Street bike lanes was based on community input.
“The last administration and a lot of the activists in that administration apparently were just building bike trails and lanes as fast as they could wherever they could,” he said. “So there’s been a significant pushback across Houston. We listened to people … I’m listening to the residents, not special interests, not people who have conflicts of interest.”
Disruption of Trust
Twenty-six cyclists were killed on Harris County roadways in 2023, the most in over a decade, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Austin Street cyclists say there wasn’t a high death toll in Midtown before Commissioner Ellis installed the bikeway because they chose other routes, something it appears they’ll have to do again now that they’re blocked from the path they’d grown to love.
A Houston Bike Plan webpage devoted to the Austin Corridor acknowledges plans for the removal of 37 free and 24 metered parking spaces — a sticking point with Whitmire — but the site does not appear to have been updated recently. Austin Street was selected for a bikeway, according to a 2019 Houston Bike Plan presentation, for its low traffic volumes, direct connections to Houston Community College and the Buffalo Bayou trail extension, and the fact that it’s not directly connected to freeway access ramps.
Justin Doak commutes daily to work on a bicycle, pedaling about 12 miles round-trip.
“Fifty percent of my trip is protected; the rest is not. I play Frogger when I have to cross Dallas, when I have to cross Westheimer, when I have to cross Gray,” he said. “I’ve even broken my arm on these streets because they’re a mess. The removal of the bike lanes on Austin Street, which is a core corridor, does more than disrupt my commute. It really disrupts my trust in the city. We were told without notice that everything was going away. That’s our protected path. We have so few, and all of a sudden it’s gone without a plan in place.”
But Austin Street resident Cynthia Aceves said Whitmire’s action is a “win-win plan that is safe and considers all involved parties.” The media has only reported on the perspective of the cyclists, Aceves said.
“But we live and work there and have to deal with the unsafe, disorderly issues daily,” she said. “The community needs order on Austin Street. There was a two-way bike lane on a one-way street. Best practices say … this introduces a new design challenge and may introduce additional conflict points as motorists may not expect oncoming bicyclists … There is chaos on Austin Street and we thank you that you are restoring order.”
A bike plan was approved by the City of Houston in March 2017 that Austin Street residents supported, Aceves said, but Commissioner Ellis instead opted for the two-way bike lanes “and shoved it down our throats.”
“We can all win here,” Aceves said. “There can be a safe bikeway and there can be consideration for the community and especially our emergency services.”
Evan McClanahan, pastor of First Lutheran Church, also supports removing the bike lanes in Midtown.
“I think it’s a fantasy that we will have a critical mass of motorists who replace their cars for bicycles,” McClanahan said. “It’s just not going to happen. It’s too hot. People are not going to give up their automobiles and use their bicycles. There are hobby bicyclists for sure … it doesn’t make a lot of sense. [The Austin Street bike lanes] are not used very much from what I can see.”
Media reports last week suggested that officials at Fire Station 7 didn’t have a problem with the bike lanes although Whitmire and others disputed that claim. A man who answered the phone at Fire Station No. 7 on Thursday said the station does not have any official position on the bike lanes and he was not authorized to comment.
Cyclists pleaded with the council last week to restore the bike lanes and raised concrete safety barriers known as “armadillos.” Whitmire said the armadillos were tearing up the tires on people’s vehicles. Council Member Abbie Kamin suggested “shared use paths” such as sidewalks as an acceptable compromise. One cyclist balked at that notion saying, “Sidewalks, forget about it. You can’t even walk on most of the sidewalks in Houston.”
Council Member Twila Carter said she’s in favor of bike paths that separate the cyclists and traffic.
“But to have bikes in a little concrete hump … as many people who are distracted on phones, looking around … I cannot tell you how many times I take a deep breath and think, oh my God, if I’d swerved for a minute I’d take out a biker,” she said. “It needs to be a bike path not a bike lane on a major thoroughfare.”
Demands for a Study and Data
Rice University professor Bob Stein, an expert in urban politics and emergency preparedness, said he’s commuted to work by bicycle for 47 years and found out that the Austin Street lanes were being torn out when he tried to cycle down the thoroughfare with his grandchild last week.
“I’ve heard nothing about this and I don’t think any council members voted on this. This was a unilateral action by the mayor,” Stein said. “I respect that, and I respect the mayor’s position on it. However, I live in the Heights. The 11th Street bike path was built two years ago. It was a controversial decision, carefully studied. It is not about bikers. It’s about old people and small children. There are three schools … talk to the principals at each of those schools. Children, including two of my grandchildren, ride their bikes to school every day.”
Stein asked the mayor and council to carefully study the matter rather than making a “midnight decision.” The bike paths force traffic to go slower and make areas safer for pedestrians, he explained.
“It’s not about convenience for cyclists; it’s about safety,” Stein said. “That is something the mayor was elected on.”
Council Member Edward Pollard, who frequently spars with Mayor Whitmire, acknowledged there are many different perspectives about bike lanes.
“But when you’re speaking about issues that impact a community you shouldn’t make any changes to that community without first speaking to [them] and getting all those sides at the table so you can understand those perspectives and hopefully find some type of compromise or at least have the dialogue so people can feel heard,” Pollard said. “I think if we do a better job of listening to folks first about what is going on in their neighborhood and how it impacts their daily lives, then we won’t have this much pushback when it comes to some of the changes that are proposed.”
Council Member Sallie Alcorn said she understood the importance of protected bike lanes and noted that elected officials have received dozens of emails from those who are upset about the change in Midtown.
“I always tell people you don’t want to piss off the bike people and you don’t want to piss off the animal people,” she said. “You have legitimate concerns about that area: the trash, the fire, the whole deal, but I couldn’t agree more … about the data. I’ve asked for crash data. I’ve asked for cost data. I’ve asked for traffic data. It’s important to have all that data when these decisions are made.”
Specific figures about Austin Street were not immediately available, but cyclist fatalities are on the rise throughout Texas, according to TxDOT.
Whitmire said last week he understood the concerns of the cyclists but his decision to remove the lanes really is about safety.
“Fire and police will not go down 11th [because of the bike lane],” he said. “The police get captured in the single lane and in an emergency can’t go around anyone and it’s pushing traffic dangerously through the neighborhood. I’m not going to get into that debate today. It is well documented by the first responders … They have a serious problem answering calls on 11th.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
