2011 Dallas Bike Plan

DallasBikePlan.org

I attended the Dallas Bike Plan meeting last night. 

They asked for input via written suggestions and also gave each participant four votes to paste across a dozen or so goals that were written on the wall.  Overall I give them kudos for reaching out.  A few ideas popped into my head during the festivities and I'm sharing them with you.  I do not believe any of them were on the goal list created by the City.

In no particular order -

1)  Eliminate zoning.  This will promote community.  More people will cycle if they feel "community".

2) Don't waste money printing the "How To Fix A Flat Tire" flyer.

3) Bridges should be built suitable for automobiles, bicycles and pedestrians.

4) Encourage private businesses, private roads, neighborhoods to be bike friendly.  Private citizens can do in a month what government cannot do across years.  Let individual neighborhoods decide how bike friendly they want to be.  If they want designated bike lanes, provide designated bike lanes - If they want to prohibit cycling, allow it.

5) Sell DART - Yes, privatize it.  DART will be much more receptive to the customer if they have to live or die by the customer.  Let a private DART decide whether to offer services to cyclists and at what price point.  (While your at it, sell the Dallas Zoo and the radio station.  Your job is infrastructure not entertainment.)

6) EVERYONE should be allowed to use the roadways AND everyone should be responsible for their actions (and any damage they cause) while using the common roadway.

7) Clean up litter on the roads.  Cycling, and driving, works best when the gutter is not a litter receptacle.

8) Enforce the traffic signals.

9) Make Dallas streets the best engineered, best constructed, sturdiest, most reliable roadways in Texas.  Germany's Autobahn has no more accidents than the USA's Interstate Highways but traffic moves much faster.  Why ? - because they are twice as thick, better designed, stronger, more durable.

10) Stop creating city owned bike parking.  Bike parking is the responsibility of business owners who desire customers.  Your job is to help bikes move.  Abandon the education aspect also.  The private sector already has that covered.  You're wasting resources that could be used to aid bike movement.

11) Remove the plant boxes from the Central Expressway bridges.  Who's idea was it to use the walkway/bikeway as a garden ?

12) Get the parked cards out of the roadway.  I ride to work daily past privately owned cars parked/ taking up space in the road.  Have private citizens store their belongings on their private property, not on common property.  Business owners will provide for their customers - it's not the City's job.  Use the streets for transportation instead of automobile storage and cyclists will have much more room to ride.  Roads are for movement.

13) Remove the damn parking meters at City Hall.  Cool Hand Luke was cutting parking meters in 1967 - Get some technology.

14) Don't spend twenty minutes at the beginning of the presentation patting yourselves on the back.  This wasn't the awards banquet.

15) Remove Dallas Parks Department from this exercise.  Let the transportation department handle transportation and the Parks Department handle entertainment.  Better yet, sell the parks to the highest bidder.  Private industry will give customers what they want much better than government can ever do it.

16) Why do all the road surfaces serve as access points to the sewage system ?  Put the manholes somewhere else other than the middle of the street.


My favorite is #12.