Bike Denton

Last week, we spoke briefly with city engineer Frank Payne to check the status of bike planning in Denton.  As you can read, Denton has hired consultant(s) to work on safe routes for children and an update to the city’s bicycle plan.

We have the consultant working on the Safe Routes to School project and have been gathering information through DISD.  We have a contract negotiated for the bicycle plan update and have been discussing possible roles with the UNT professor, wrapping that up as recently as a week ago last Thursday.  So, we should be underway on the bike route update shortly, pending contract execution.

We’re very happy to hear reports of progress, and we hope to see a realistic, benchmarked bicycle plan that doesn’t collect dust, as many master plans do.  We’d like to find out contract details including cost for the SRTS and plan update projects, and we’ll report back when we know the numbers.

Jon Triantafyllou

Phil Bayiss

Yesterday morning, Denton’s own Jon Triantafyllou and teammate Phil Bayiss started a 4500 mile, 66 day ride from San Diego to New Jersey to raise money for cancer research.   They are riding road bikes and pulling bob trailers, and they’ve mapped out their estimated checkpoint arrival times for a huge list of cities.  Many of us in Denton know Jon and met him through Querencia, and we’ve become good friends on bikes and off.  I had a blast riding the Hotter Than Hell 100 with him last year, and I know he’ll have a great, life-changing adventure.   are cheering him on from back home.  They accept contributions via Paypal, if you’d like to help.

My whole life I have seen cancer all around me.  In elementary school one of my best friends lost his father to brain cancer.  My grandfather has fought and survived colon cancer not once, but twice.  My grandmother lost a fight to cancer two years ago.  My aunt fought off breast cancer and is now in remission.  And most recently I have been diagnosed and undergone treatment for thyroid cancer.  While I am lucky that my type of cancer is easily cured, there are millions out there that are not so lucky.

Our mission is to do anything we can to help find the cure for cancer.  The easiest way for us to accomplish this is to raise money that can be used for cancer research.  We will be riding our bikes from San Diego, CA to Avalon, NJ, a journey of about 4,500 miles.  This is an extreme trip for us, since we are not avid cyclists.  However, we feel that a trip this extreme is warranted to raise as much awareness and funds as possible.

Please feel free to contact us for any reason.  Our email address is biketowardsthecure@gmail.com.  We would love to hear from supporters so that we know we are making a difference.  We are doing all of this for those millions that have been affected by this horrible disease, so let your voices be heard!

You can follow their journey via twitter or the blog.

From Colin McDonald’s recent piece in MySanAntonio, we see a scenario both similar to Denton yet further advanced:

For years, San Antonio has built streets and approved developments with little to no accommodation for anything but motor vehicles. Now with obesity rates off the charts, the region on the verge of violating federal air standards and a new mayor who sees bicycles as part of being a competitive and attractive city, bike lanes are gaining ground.

It’s a move Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Minneapolis; and New York made decades ago.

According to a study for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, San Antonio and Bexar County could add 350 miles of bike lanes just by restriping pavement, without impeding traffic or widening roads. The “road diet” plan would more than triple the miles of bike lanes and go a long way toward forming a grid.

The timeline on the left side of the article lays out the sad life of a master plan: negligence, edits, negligence, edits etc.  Negligence aside, the city still managed to increase bike lanes and routes from 34 to 136 miles over the last decade.  But for a metro area facing violation of air-quality standards, rising obesity epidemic, and traffic congestion, they need a full scale transit mode shift away from cars.  To help get there, the region’s health czar wants San Antonio to adopt a Complete Streets policy:

Metro Health Director Fernando Guerra likes bike lanes because they encourage people to be active. This spring, his department received a $15 million federal grant to fight obesity.

Along with measures to improve eating habits, funds are dedicated to create a ride-to-own-bike program, establish a “complete-streets” policy so the city considers all modes of transportation, and start ciclovías, where miles of streets would be periodically closed to make room for bikes, classes and recreation in a citywide celebration of being active outdoors.

To assure actual change and not just a grandiose master plan, the city’s director of public works and a city engineer created a requirement, stating “Bike facilities must be considered as part of all roadway-related projects that are not further along than 40 percent design approval stage.”

For Denton, I see some valuable lessons:

1. Denton’s planning paradigm must shift away from moving cars and towards moving people
2. We need to work more closely with our MPO, which is NCTCOG.  Dallas is receiving NCTCOG funding for their new bicycle plan, so why aren’t we asking for help too?  NCTCOG has some great advice, and the bicycle coordinator, Deborah Humphreys, would be pleasantly surprised if Denton started asking her for help.
3. Clarify and expand our existing development code requirement which already requires “bicycle lanes” on all arterial roads
4. Adopt a Complete Streets policy for the entire city

Thanks to all the cyclists who came by The Hydrant for our first BikeDenton commuter station for Bike-To-Work Day!  We met riders from all walks of life: a pathologist, a professor, a police lieutenant (Tom Woods), a city councilman (Dalton Gregory), UNT staff, an elementary school teacher, UNT students, parents with children in tow, a random guy just riding by, a massage therapist, and many more.  We saw road bikes, mountain bikes, cruisers, cargo bikes, and bike trailers.

All in all, we gave away 40 breakfast tacos from The Hydrant (via Mi Casita), at least 2-3 carafes of Bookish Coffee, and we sold about 20 BikeDenton t-shirts.

Today (and really all days), we salute you riders for doing your part.  We are already excited about doing this again in 365 days!  Do we really have to wait that long?

First two photos courtesy of Trent Geerdes:

Since publishing the story, two more cyclists have admitted also being hit by thrown fruit in the last month, and one specifically recognized the white, 4-door, MKIV VW Golf Tdi in question. If any cyclists have similar assault crimes to report, please contact the Denton Police Department.

The story of Saturday night’s assault has received a lot of interesting feedback, and even national coverage by Streetsblog.  The comments cover all the usual angles: absolution, condemnation, empathy for both parties, and threats towards cyclists.  Even family members of the suspects have commented.

Sources in the Denton high-school community report that this is part of an unofficial sport called “nannering”, in which the participants purchase bulk fruit from the Kroger on University and use it as ammo to pelt each other (and obviously innocent bystanders).  We urge the parents, teachers, and principals, to advise students to cease this reckless pursuit.  We all remember doing things we regret in high school, but assaulting innocent bystanders is far over the line of social and legal acceptance.  Reckless driving has claimed lives of at least four area high-schoolers I can recall in the last year, and pursuits like these aren’t worth injury, jail time, or worse.  For those who think a thrown banana is no big deal, read how this cyclist was almost killed by a mere cup of thrown ice.

We’ve always wanted to sponsor a Bike-To-Work Day commuter appreciation station like Austin, San Francisco, DC, etc.  This year, or rather, this Friday, we’re doing it.  Free breakfast tacos.  Free coffee from the Hydrant Cafe (using fair-trade beans from Denton’s most aromatic secret: Bookish Coffee roasters).

Facebook RSVP!

Want a Bike Friendly Denton shirt?  Stop by.

Want to thank city council person Dalton Gregory for advocating safe passing?  He’ll be there, volunteer working the commuter station.

• 7-9 AM
• Friday, May 21
• street corner in front of The Hydrant Cafe, 208 W. Oak St.

When a car passes by as you’re cycling, and the occupants hurl objects at your faces, you might not assume that they’ll get caught.  You also might not assume that you’ll get to meet the hooligans, make your case for simple human decency, and have a police officer deliver cake to your house.

Don’t assume anything.

In 1980, when I was four, my family went to Richardson Bike Mart and bought a Raleigh for me, my first bike.  I immediately rode it around the block, and I heard from a car “hey kid!”.  I turned and looked, and a tennis ball hit right me between my eyes, hurled from a wood-paneled station wagon.  I fell off the bike and puked everywhere.  Face stinging, I trudged home.  That was my first bike ride, but I made it thirty years before feeling that sting again.

Last night at approximately 11 PM, 6 of us were cycling from the downtown square on Mulberry towards UNT.  Humans.  People with names and lives: David, Krystal, Lindsay, James, Renee, Howard.  UNT students, a commercial pilot, a UNT Psychology teacher, UNT staff members, and a vacationing nice guy.

At the Carroll Blvd intersection, we waited through the red light (which seems to not change for cyclists), and we proceeded through the (very short) green light.  Once through the intersection, we called “car back” and let two cars past.  As they were passing us, we saw a blur of arms hurling objects out the windows.  Something ricocheted off my arm, and Krystal was hit in the face (near the eyes) with half of a firm banana, stem attached.   From the cars we heard “Go! Go! Go!”.  We gave chase but couldn’t get close enough to see the license plates.  On Hickory, we flagged down a UNT police officer who was patrolling the 20mph Hickory speed zone.  We explained what happened, and the officer said he would “keep an eye out”.  He did not seem interested in the assault.

We continued on towards a birthday party for a friend.  At Welch and Mulberry, I saw the white 2000-2004 4-door VW Golf TDI.  I pointed at the car, recognize the passengers, and one of them yelled “we’re sorry” out the window.  We sprinted behind them down Mulberry towards Carroll, and the light turned red, so the car paused.  I squinted and read the plate: Y84-PWJ.  Then, they were gone.

I called the UNT non-emergency line, and the dispatch told me to call the city police.  I read her the license plate number to pass on to the UNT officer who we spoke to.  We called the Denton Police, told them the license plate number, and they immediately dispatched a patrol car to the accident scene.  We sat alongside Mulberry, resting and talking.  From across the street, a very kind man walked over, excused any awkward politeness, and gave us half of a graduation-themed sheet cake.  I love Denton; because where else, really?.  We thanked him and gladly took the cake.  Suddenly, we noticed the white VW Golf going north on Carroll, past Mulberry.  What are the chances?!  Immediately behind the Golf was a Denton PD cruiser.  Wow.  And then the police blue and red lights came on.  Wow!  We rode over to the Northstar Bank parking lot where the officer and the car was, and we watched as several teenagers emerged from the car.

Officer Weber asked them what happened, and the teenagers replied that their friends had thrown bananas at the cyclists.  Weber pointed out the banana smear on one boy’s shirt.  I asked the boys “if your friends did this, then maybe you can call and have them meet us here”.   They called, and surprisingly, the friends arrived in the maroon Honda Accord, CWN-658.

Seven high schoolers from Denton and Guyer high stood before us.

Officer Weber explained the seriousness of their assault, and that if Krystal had chosen to press charges, they would no doubt have been jailed.  We made our case for human decency, and that we couldn’t possibly comprehend what they were thinking when they assaulted us.  We explained that cyclists are human beings, and that the anonymity of driving should never change that cause for decency.  They apologized.  They seemed remorseful.  Some of them seemed strangely lighthearted, and Weber told them this wasn’t a laughing matter.  Some of the boys admitted that they’re about to go to college, and one mentioned going to Austin.  Officer Weber reminded them that an assault conviction could ruin those plans.  Krystal and I invited the teenagers to show some good will by volunteer working at the Querencia Community Bike Shop on any Saturday afternoon.  Who knows if they’ll ever show up.  They’d be welcome, for sure, but I doubt they have the guts to do a good turn.  I challenge them to prove me wrong.  If you’re reading this, high school guys, email info@qcbs.org and help us provide good community service to Denton.  We are not begrudging people, and who knows, you might actually like us.  Come ride with us sometime, and learn what it’s like to ride a bike here.  It’s usually pretty awesome.  Usually.

After a good thirty minutes of discussion and apologies, Officer Weber let the seven teenagers go.  Do I think they committed crimes of assault?  Yep.  Do I think they understand the seriousness?  I think so.  Do I think they should’ve gone to jail last night?  I’m not sure.

Officer Weber had a really great, calm, wise demeanor over the situation.  He read the situation quickly and effectively, and he did an great job of expressing how serious the assault was.  He did a fantastic job, and we think he is an exemplary example for law enforcement.  On the other hand, the UNT police response left us feeling ignored.  With that experience and UNT’s intent to remove the Avenue C bike lanes, we couldn’t help but feel like UNT hasn’t moved forward with much of their Master Bicycle Plan beyond simply installing bike racks.  With great cycling Denton police officers like Tom Woods, Andy DeBerry, and Mr. Weber, we feel safer for their loyalty and outreach.  We challenge UNT Police to live up to the same standard and engage with Denton’s growing cycling community.

So after we finished talking to Officer Weber, he asked how we’d transport the cake home. We weren’t sure.  Officer Weber took the cake, drove it to our destination on Hickory, and handed it to us in the front yard.  The neighbors gawked and took pictures.  We grinned, thanked Officer Weber profusely, ate cake, and went to sleep.  I hope it’s at least another thirty years before any of us are assaulted by motorists again.

Remember:

1. Avoid violent confrontation with motorists
2. Memorize license plate numbers and call the police
3. When things happen just right, a police officer could deliver cake to your house