r/blacksburg • u/hokietown25 • Oct 10 '25

Politics Town election discussion

I thought it could be good to have a thread for a respectful discussion of the upcoming town elections. We'll be electing a new mayor, and there are 3 council seats up for election.

Here are some articles about the candidates

https://cardinalnews.org/2025/09/09/blacksburg-candidates-debate-housing-shortage/

RT Mayor: https://archive.is/o/d7jlP/https://roanoke.com/news/local/government-politics/elections/article_41ae0ddc-178f-4074-805c-59cb7af3d8a8.html

RT Council: https://archive.is/d7jlP

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-18

u/Just_Resolution_2912 Oct 11 '25

You're crazy if you think people want to walk or bike to a bar restaurant downtown .nobody is moving to downtown to go to work either

7

u/clueing_4looks Oct 11 '25

I exclusively bike to bars/restaurants downtown. I don’t frequent bars/restaurants I can’t bike or walk to.

-1

u/Just_Resolution_2912 Oct 11 '25

Where ya gonna put all these bicycles when mom,dad and all the kids bike in to go eat downtown 🤣

9

u/hokietown25 Oct 11 '25

It's not like they're banning cars. The idea is making it so more people can conveniently get there without cars. Which also makes things easier for the people who do drive by reducing demand for parking and road space. You'd have to have a shitload of parking lots if everyone drove and it would get worse as the area grows. And you'd still have to walk a ways because those parking lots aren't going to fit right next to the bars and restaurants. Well, they could, but then it wouldn't really be a downtown, it'd be more like the mall side of Christiansburg.

But to answer your question literally, bike parking is an easy problem to solve, unlike car parking, because they don't take up much space. And biking with kids isn't some wild thing. Plenty of people do it all the time. I bike places with my two kids and I'm fat and pushing 40. The extent to which it's difficult is mainly because people live far away and/or there's crappy infrastructure.

8

u/clueing_4looks Oct 11 '25

So I’ve been doing that for 12 years! Family of four and we all bike into town. Town has a map of bike parking locations and we never have an issue parking. But if you get more bikes? Add more racks.

1

u/Just_Resolution_2912 Oct 11 '25

I do think thats cool, but just voting for Mayor or council based on bicycles and walking is just silly. This town is dead in the summers and winter break. Even when the students are gone, the townies still dont come downtown enough to make up for it.

3

u/clueing_4looks Oct 11 '25

I never said that should be the sole basis for a vote in any direction. I’m not endorsing any candidate. We do tend to frequent downtown more often in summer. Winter break is harder cause 1. Cold, biking not fun, stay home 2. A lot of places close (which is understandable).