Giant gaping hole: Major road malfunctions of Austin

If I had to quantify it (I don't but lets say I did) I'd say that the streets in Austin are a good 45% less smooth than the streets in Portland.

Take for example Speedway, a street named for horse racing that runs through the center of UT, which has been undergoing construction projects since I got here. Speedway is a major bike route for me. I take it to school, to work, and to most places south of me. I do this because it has a bike lane and there are no arterial crossing aids on any of the smoother, lower-traffic streets that parallel it.

Internet sleuthery got me nowhere in finding out what they are doing on Speedway (I sadly admit this and am glad I haven't had library patrons inquiring). "Private construction" has been suggested to me by some Austin natives. As they don't do private construction on public streets in Oregon, I'm going to have to assume some evil private concern is tearing up the street for the sheer joy of it, leaving the bike lane, bumpy, cracked, and full of debri.

The road has gotten so bad that I've taken to riding a lot of speedway well in the middle of the lane. I don't think a lot of cars behind me understand what I'm doing and I've been overtaken and cut off by a number of buses pulling over and cars turning right. I have small tires that don't take well to bumps and gravel. One time I almost beaned a catholic school kid in the head with a rock when it shot out sideways from underneath them. I'm just trying to keep everyone safe.

A friend of mine declared that she'd like to see the mayor try and ride a bike along the stretch from 35th to 45th. If he did he might fall into a giant gaping hole just like Spike did the other night.

As we were biking home from the grocery store after dark Spike, riding ahead of me, suddenly crashed into a sink hole that had opened up where road crews had drilled and filled a day or so prior. Luckily Spike managed to clip out of his pedals and start running, and I to dodge (not so lucky my friend Adam behind me who dog piled into the hole with Spike). Given that Austin has a serious lack of streetlights the hole was virtually invisible until you were almost in it. So Spike called Austin's non emergency line and we stood blocking the hole for a while, angry cars swerving around us not knowing we were keeping them from damage. A woman on a motorcycle cruised by on 43rd and I told Spike, who seemed to be getting a less than worried response from the person on the 311 line, to inform them that the hole was surely big enough to send a motorcyclest flying. By morning the hole had been re-filled and made a spongy black mound, treacherous but no longer a death trap.