RETRACTION: Embarrassingly, I didn’t correctly forward my bikedenton.org email account, and as a result I missed the responses to the questionnaire from Charlye Heggins, Andrew Teeter, Dalton Gregory, and Eli Beltran.
I am compiling the responses right now, and I’ll have them posted up shortly.
On Monday, we sent (via email) a BikeDenton.org voter guide questionnaire to every single council candidate for the May 9 election. We asked for responses by Friday at noon, which is admittedly short notice, but I thought it better late than never to have even tried this approach.
We didn’t get a single reply. Not even a request for more time.
From the candidates who spoke at the recent Neighborhood Alliance forum, I noticed an overwhelming under-recognition of bicyclists in Denton except from a few candidates (Andrew Teeter, Bob Clifton, Eli Beltran). There were about 6 of us who rode to the meeting, out of maybe 30 people in total attendance. To me, that is not an insignificant slice of the voting population, not by any stretch of the means, especially in a town as “undervoted in” as Denton. The one bike-lane question asked of the candidates was reframed by the moderator as a TCEQ air quality question, which completely dominated the answers. I will say I was quite disappointed that Amy Manuel is opposed to any on-road bike lanes and only in favor of physically separated paths.
I think my point to this post is this: Denton has a long way to go before cycling is recognized as the amazing opportunity that it is. Portland/Copenhagen/Austin this ain’t. I also ain’t going to quit advocating for cycling in Denton. I choose not to shut up.
Without further ado, here’s the ignored BikeDenton.org voter questionnaire which was sent to the council candidates.