The Twisted Means Towards a Good End

City designates lanes on Sixth Street for musicians

Playing on Sixth Street may now be a little easier for musicians.

The city of Austin created musician loading zones to better accommodate bands that need to unload their equipment for shows.

The music lanes are designated with diamond boxes so bands don?t have to fear parking tickets.

The City owns the streets (ignore all that populist, lefty crap about citizens owning it) so it decided to help out the music scene.

"It is the most effective forward thinking thing we've done for live music in a couple of years," Bob Woody of the East Sixth Street Community Association said.

In the past, bands double-parked on Sixth Street before and after shows.

"They're down here trying to make some money for their time here, and a lot of times they work for very little the last thing we want to do is make it so it costs them to do business," Woody said.

Now between 6:30 p.m. and 3 a.m., musicians can park in a music lane, get a placard from the venue they're playing and be free from parking tickets for up to 20 minutes.

Of course, if the venues owned the property in front of them or if a private entity owned the roads in front of them, they could have negotiated a deal along these lines YEARS AGO and it would have been mutually beneficial to all parties involved.

Some musicians say the lanes are overdue, but still may not help revive the Sixth Street music scene.

"I think they are good for now, but they were needed a long time ago and its a neglected thing," Dave Brown of Groovin Ground said.

"It's not about lanes. It's not about paint. It's about the city giving the music community some respect," Evan Bozarth of Groovin Ground said.

Copyright ©2004TWEAN News Channel of Austin, L.P. d.b.a. News 8 Austin

Keep throwing the music scene a bone or two. Meanwhile, noise ordinances, smoking laws, zoning regulations, tax codes, and all the other tentacles of local government continue to "costs them to do business" over and above what it should cost them.

Posted by Drizzten at February 12, 2004 05:45 PM