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.
Yeah, sounds like the officials up there are following their own agenda. I don’t live in Denton, but I wish you the best of luck in dealing with this problem. Look forward to seeing you at a ride or maybe at Querencia in the future.
Kinda makes me wonder why there is going to be a Ride to Vote if the candidates to vote for don’t acknowledge the idea or bike activism in general.
I sent my response to the questionnaire to Howard Draper at 6:13 p.m. on April 30. I am disappointed that it was not included. I am very supportive of bike trails. It is listed as the number one priority in the Denton Parks and Recreation Department Master Plan given to the City Council in February 2009.
Dalton Gregory, candidate for district 2 Denton City Council.
Andrew Teeter strongly supports bike lines and bike activism, so if he didn’t respond he either didn’t have time to do so, or did not see your questionnaire.
Dalton is exactly correct. He and three other candidates responded, and I foolishly didn’t set up my email forwarding properly. I apologize profusely for this massive error, and I’ll print a retraction ASAP.
Funny, this sounds exactly like something I would do! At least you had the guts to publicly admit your mistake with your retraction etc.
It’s good to know that some of these guys actually support Denton cyclists. I drove around Denton last Friday (work related trip) imagining how hard it would be to get from place to place in your town. It didn’t look good.
Thanks to Howard Draper for discovering the mistake and making a correction. During my time on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board for the City of Denton I heard at least two different presentations on the development of a comprehensive bike lane/trail system. I think that this is important for safety, for health (encouraging more exercise), and for air quality.
Now that I have been elected to the Denton City Council I hope to work with bikedenton.org to make some real progress in this area. This is going to require some significant effort on the part of all folks who want a real lane/trail system. The city is going to face a few tough budget years and it will be easy to let this drop off the radar unless there is a steady effort made by people who hold quality of life as a high priority.
Dalton Gregory, Councilman Elect, district 2, City of Denton