City of Brownsville Claims Battlefield Hike & Bike Trail Has "1,000 Daily Riders"

Battlefield Hike & Bike Trail at Linear Park

The Story of Brownsville is "A Tale of Two Cities"; one fanciful, fabricated and currently non-existent, the other, "the poorest city in America, hardworking, uneducated and oblivious to the political leeches sucking their blood.

Nothing illustrates the divide between the "eye test" and what City of Brownsville officials portray as reality than an obvious lie on the application for a grant to connect the Battlefield Hike & Bike Trail with Fort Brown by running a bike trail through downtown Brownsville.  The application for federal money stated that "1,000 riders, on average, use the Battlefield Hike & Bike Trail daily."

City officials lied because they wanted the grant. The lie was rewarded with a $786,000 federal grant to extend the bike trail through town.  Ordinary citizens, who look left and right before crossing the bike trail, seldom see cyclists.  It's not that a protected bike trail isn't a good idea.  But, its use and need has been oversold at the very least.

Billboard hanging at Harlingen Airport
terminal on $7,000 annual contract

Our attendance at the recent Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation board meeting this week, revealed another cycling concept being promoted by the City of Brownsville; cycling tourism.

BCIC Chair Gowen

BCIC Board Chairperson Rose Gowen opined at the meeting that she recalled reading somewhere that cycle tourists had "an average annual income of $190,000, no, $200,000 and typically held advanced educational degrees, masters degrees on average."

Cycling Tourists

Intending to attract these cycle tourists, BCIC spent $7,000 taxpayer dollars on the billboard inside the HRL terminal to advertise the city as the "Bicycling Capital of the Rio Grande Valley." Let's not categorize that as a lie, so much as a hope, a Field of Dreams "Build it and they will come" strategy to advertise Brownsville's cycling opportunities to passengers landing at the Harlingen airport. 

Real World Brownville Cyclist/Recycler

But, let's be honest.  No cycling tourists have placed their high-end bicycles into baggage on a Southwest Airlines flight with the intention of riding Brownsville hard during their vacation.  Even Cyclopedia is a trumped up city event, funded by BCIC, not something generated by local, popular demand.  It's an orchestrated photo-op for the city's agenda.  Again, fantasy and reality in play.

Anyway, here are recent comments to this blog about the state of Brownsville cycling:

Comment #1: The whole BCIC organization is a big joke and should be audited. Spending thousands for billboards with fictitious wannabe city adopted titles is clueless. This group thrives on milking the government for freebie "quality of life" projects that people refuse to participate in. I pass by the Beldon Bike Trail at least twice a day through St Charles Street by John Villareals Tortilleria "La Milpa" and have never seen anyone ride a bike there since it opened. What a joke!!!

Comment #2: The whole BCIC organization is a big joke and should be audited. Spending thousands for billboards with fictitious wannabe city adopted titles is clueless. This group thrives on milking the government for freebie "quality of life" projects that people refuse to participate in. I pass by the Beldon Bike Trail at least twice a day through St Charles Street by John Villareals Tortilleria "La Milpa" and have never seen anyone ride a bike there since it opened. What a joke!!! 

Comment #3:  The city and especially Commissioner Rose Gowen have given this title to themselves. I drive the streets around the city daily and I can clearly see that the bike lanes are used mostly as turn lanes or for parking. Go to Alton Gloor any afternoon when Burns School (or Paredes Line at Vela School) and see that the bike lanes are parking lanes for parents picking up their children. Very seldom do I ever see a bike in those lanes. Perhaps on the weekend one or two bikes might be seen further outside the city. This advertisement of a "bike city" is laughable and is truly a vision of some who never drive around the city. City offiicials seem to have the cart before the horse....unrealistic and untrue.

Comment #4: You notice that these PR mavens modestly limit Brownsville to the bicycling capital of the Rio Grande Valley. That is like saying Miami is the snow mobile capital of Florida. And, what in the hell is with the mountain ridge in the background? Or, is that an overpass with trees growing out of it?

Comment #5: AS they say in Mexico "Pueblo Bicicletero" meaning the village is so small that the only way of transportation needed is a bicycle!! 

Comment #6: As long as you are willing to take your life in your hands! The bike lanes here have become "turning lanes or parking lanes" for the public. The city doesn't enforce any type of protection for bikers. This community is a plague for bikers as long as the bike lanes are allowed to be used for parking and passing.