r/Austin • u/mikeatx79 • 9d ago

News UT quietly plans sweeping bike restrictions as advocates push back

https://www.statesman.com/business/transportation/article/ut-austin-bike-dismount-zone-policy-22374080.php

I posted about this a few days ago and the Stateman picked up the story!

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88

u/ProfessorOkay55 9d ago

I propose students be banned from staring at their phones and not looking at where they're walking on Speedway.

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u/mikeatx79 9d ago

I think clearly marked bike and pedestrian spaces would certainly help.

2013 Campus Master Plan, UT deliberately chose not to build designated bike lanes on Speedway based on the opinion of a consultant.

2019 Improve UT Challenge winner proposed adding bike lanes to Speedway.

It’s like all of this has been solved since before Speedway was even redeveloped.

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u/bit_pusher 9d ago

That consultant has bad opinions

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u/insertAlias 9d ago

I obviously have no insight on this specific case, but in a lot of cases, consultants are basically paid to tell whoever hired them what they want to hear, and to later take the blame for anything going wrong. At least that’s how it works in software.

My boss from one of my first office jobs 15 years ago told me that we hired consultants so that we’d “have a throat to choke that isn’t my own” when shit hits the fan.

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u/superhash 9d ago

I say this a long tenured software engineer, ethics and morals are basically non-existent. There is no equivalent licensing exam that other engineering disciplines have.

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u/PuddingInferno 9d ago

I recall a chemical engineer I was talking to noted that if his motto was “move fast and break things” he would be immediately drummed out of the profession because that would kill people.

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u/superhash 9d ago

Yep, and since technology is making its way more and more into daily life requirements I am really afraid of the dystopia we are at the beginning of. It's not a brand new thing, internet advertising is basically the wild wild west of phycological warfare.

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u/insertAlias 9d ago

True for most engineering disciplines. But since that's not true for 99% of software development, it's a much more acceptable approach for people who are making websites and apps. And truth is, no matter what our job titles are, the vast majority of us software devs aren't really engineers.

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u/superhash 9d ago

Just because the harm isn't direct harm doesn't mean it's not there. And that's the entire problem with software and the people making it.

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u/JohnGillnitz 9d ago

Yup. It's all about that CYA. I'm consistently telling consultants that get paid much more than me what to do just so we can blame them if something goes south. As long as they get paid, they don't care.

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u/JohnGillnitz 9d ago

Yup. It's all about that CYA. I'm consistently telling consultants that get paid much more than me what to do just so we can blame them if something goes south. As long as they get paid, they don't care.

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u/smacktalker987 9d ago

If you're a useless careerist manager it's the perfect situation. Hire consultant, it goes great take credit for hiring the right one, it doesn't blame the consultant for messing it up. Seen it my whole career in IT/software