You know that raised lane on Avenue C on the UNT campus? First, it was a bidirectional bike lane, a very advanced design for Texas, and the only known cycletrack in the region. Then, it suddenly became a loading zone. Now, the formerly expensive cycletrack will become even more of a loading zone. This raised facility is now considered to expensive to build, even if you wanted it, and now it’s going away. We urge you to contact the representatives below and voice your opinion.
In an administrative announcement this morning, UNT explained that the city will remove the elevated bike lane on Ave C to replace it with a loading zone for cars. If you spend time on the UNT campus, you perhaps already noticed the existing loading zone for the Music building, just around the corner from this one. Now there will be two loading zones, and no bicycle facility, unless the engineers announce otherwise.
We hope that the city traffic engineers include bicycle facilities in the replacement design, or this invaluable cross-campus route will be lost. At the recent bicycle facility meetings, the engineers hinted at bike-lane installations on Eagle and Welch. We think a similar trans-campus route like Avenue C would compliment those routes quite well.
The City of Denton streets department will begin work on a new passenger drop-off lane on Ave. C, adjacent to the Music Building, beginning Monday, May 17.
As a result, Ave. C northbound between Highland and Chestnut, will be closed for approximately two weeks. This section of street will re-open when construction is completed.
Crews will remove the existing elevated paved lane on the east side of Ave. C between the west bridge entrance and the northern most entrance to the Music Building. They will install a new passenger drop-off lane. The new installation is designed to ease the flow of traffic on Ave. C during peak hours.
We know that the UNT Chancellor, Lee Jackson, wants the UNT Denton campus to become more bike-friendly and walkable. But does he know that unless replacement bike facilities are planned, we’ll lose an asset that would be extremely expensive to reproduce?
If you’d like to send polite comments to the relevant representatives, we suggest these folks:
Lee Jackson, UNT Chancellor, Lee.Jackson@unt.edu
Lane Rawlins, UNT President, V.Rawlins@unt.edu
Joe Richmond, UNT Transportation Director, joerichmond@unt.edu
Jim Engelbrecht, District 3 City Council rep, Jim.Engelbrecht@cityofdenton.com
Frank Payne, City of Denton Engineer, Frank.Payne@cityofdenton.com