From the scandalous and useful “Denton Police” Twitter feed, we (JW) found this recent jail booking.
04/22/2009 23:23:36 | 48 years old | BICYCLE/NO WHITE LIGHT ON BICYCLE
Author Archives: howrad
Denton Neighborhood Alliance candidate forum, TONIGHT 7PM
Denton Neighborhood Alliance Forum
April 23, 2009
7:00 p.m.
City Council Chambers
City Hall
215 E. McKinney
I urge as many Denton residents as possible to go to these candidate forums and participate. Show up 15 minutes early, fill out cards with questions, and wait for answers from the city council candidates. This is a prime time to see who supports biking and pedestrian infrastructure improvements. Don’t forget, frustration with bicycle and pedestrian paths is the #3 complaint from the recent citizen survey.
I hope to see you there, but don’t shake my hand, because I’m sneezing with a cold…
Fresh Victory of Senate Bill 488 – Safe Passing
This is super exciting!! I’ve been keeping an eye on this bill over the last few months as its support increased. This bill designates safe passing distances that cyclists and pedestrians are due, and violation of this bill (aka, hitting somebody with a car) can now justify disciplinary action. Huge props to BikeDFW who organized 40 cyclists onto a bus to go down to Austin and support this bill. This is a landmark Texas achievement in legislation and cycling lobbying.
Straight from the horse’s mouth, Bike Texas (aka Texas Bicycle Coalition) says:
The 2009 Safe Passing Bill, Senate Bill 488 was passed today by the Texas State Senate by a vote of 28-2.
Over the last two weeks, BikeTexas has been working with Senators Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) and Dan Patrick (R-Houston) and their staff to craft language that would address Senator Patrick’s concerns while still preserving the safety benefits of the bill. This afternoon, Senator Ellis reintroduced the bill and Senator Patrick then offered a floor amendment to substitute the compromise language. Senator Ellis accepted the amendment, and the bill passed with 28 voting yes and 2 voting no.
Click here to see the tentative amended version of the bill (the official version is not yet posted on the Legislature’s website). We have not been able to find out which senators voted no, but when that information is available it will be posted here.
Final coauthors in the Senate were Senators Ellis, John Carona (R-Dallas), Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) and Kirk Watson (D-Austin). As we informed the Cyclists in Suits participants yesterday, Senator Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) did not sign on as a coauthor of SB 488. Due to an unfortunate miscommunication with her staff, we mistook her coauthoring of a different bike-friendly bill (SB 2041, requiring bike questions on the driver’s license exam) for coauthoring the Safe Passing bill. We apologize for any confusion this caused.
Link to original Bike Texas safe passing page.
can a bike pump inflate car tires?
yes.
It took me a couple minutes to add about 10 pounds.
Bike Rack at recent DCTA public meeting
So beautiful.
Here’s a recap of what we learned from DCTA at the meeting:
- new Rail Trail will be 8 ft wide, paved, with 3 ft wide paved shoulders
- (quite handsome) white stone sound barrier wall between trail and rail
- first 18 months of operation, DCTA will use ooooold rail cars, full diesel, with no bike accommodations. However, when asked if we could bring bikes on the train, the DCTA director responded that we could as long as no wheelchairs are displaced. After 18 months, we’ll see the newer hybrid-diesel ground level cars with 4-6 bike hooks each.
- the train will not run on Sundays
- train will traverse loop 288 via an overpass
- yes, the current rail trail will be interrupted during construction, and they’ll be building the new trail and rail simultaneously. Both will be done in segments.
- DCTA seemed to appreciate the participation of Denton cyclists. They mentioned that they’d love to have a cyclist on the DCTA citizen advisory board. The DCTA directors came by the bike racks and made friendly conversation after the meeting.
Austin, TX Bike Sharing for city staff
As read about on AustinOnTwoWheels, city staff can now reserve and check out bikes online.
The city statement on this program follows:
The Austin Climate Protection Program has purchased automatic-shift bicycles that City employees can use to ride away from high gasoline prices, while steering toward a reduction in carbon emissions by minimizing the amount of vehicle miles driven. These bikes may be used for business needs, such as going to meetings, lunch or other activities. The cycles are located at several locations in the downtown area, which include:
- Town Lake Center, 721 Barton Springs Road.
- 811 Barton Springs Road.
- Austin Water Utility at Waller Creek, 625 E. 10th St.
- One Texas Center, 505 Barton Springs Road.
- City Hall, 301 W. Second St.
- Parks and Recreation, 200 S. Lamar
This project is intended to address the need for the City to reduce its carbon footprint within departments as directed under the Austin Climate Protection Plan. Vehicular travel is a significant contributor to the City’s carbon footprint and this program will help in relieving carbon emissions.
The KVUE coverage got a great quote from the Austin Transportation Director, Robert Spillar:
“I know my employees who use the bike-share program, or their own bikes, are some of the healthiest employees. It’s good business because it lowers our healthcare costs.”
With a group like Querencia recycling donated/abandoned bikes, I wonder if a partnership between QCBS and the City of Denton could facilitate a similar bike sharing program? At the very least, recycled bikes would be free and wouldn’t put any capital at risk. An official Bicycle/Pedestrian city run program like the one in Austin would be a great start.
DCTA A-Train & Rail Trail meeting tonight, 6:30
Our friends at Querencia Community Bike Shop just posted up a handy reminder that DCTA is hosting a public meeting about the coming A-Train for DCTA. This is a huge change for Denton, and we’ve heard that the last public meeting had about 30 attendees. If 10 of us show up on bicycle, that’s a huge representative sample of the interested community. If you ride a bicycle and are concerned/interested in the transit station downtown and bike accommodations on the train, NOW is the time to ask.
I’ve heard that the train will be built on top of the existing rail trail, and supposedly the rail trail will be rebuilt later. I’d like to ask about the timeline for when the trail will be rebuilt, because I rely on it for safe passage to Loop 288 stores.
Will the train cars have bike hooks? If they do, imagine the possibilities. Bike camping, riding in Dallas, etc.
Public Meeting, 6:30PM
Fred Moore High School Gym
815 Cross Timber St
Denton, TX 76205
Near the intersection of Robertson St. and Morse St.
A Shared Vision for A Shared Future
Thanks to a streetsblog post, I noticed a bold announcement from the U.S. Deputy Secretary of DOT. I know that he was addressing a regional east coast group, but these words still ring out as a federally endorsed initiative from the top of the DOT command chain. Via nymtc.org:
Keynote speaker Vice Admiral Thomas Barrett, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, discussed the Obama Administration’s key transportation priorities, emphasizing the role the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will play in the nation’s economic recovery, as well as their approach for integrating transportation and land use through innovative programs such as the recently announced joint HUD/DOT Sustainable Communities initiative.
I can’t overstate my thought that Denton is poised to become a model city for sustainable multi-modal transit. It might not happen unless we ask for it, though. Some key people in the city, like the mayor and Pete Kamp, support multi-modal transit, but so far I haven’t seen a collective citizen campaign to bolster and encourage it.
Denton stands to gain so much from attracting intelligent innovators, who may have previously thought of Denton as a transitional college town. This article from Fast Company sums it up succinctly:
If the suburb is a big loser in mortgage crisis episode, then who is the winner? Not surprisingly, the New Urbanists, a group of planners, developers and architects devoted to building walkable towns based on traditional designs, have interpreted the downturn as vindication of their plans for mixed-use communities where people can stroll from their homes to schools and restaurants.
Richard Florida, a Toronto business professor and author of “Who’s Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life,” argues that dense and diverse cities with “accelerated rates of urban metabolism” are the communities most likely to innovate their way through economic crisis. In an article published in this month’s issue of The Atlantic, he posits that New York is at a relative advantage, despite losing a chunk of its financial engine, because the jostling proximity of architects, fashion designers, software writers and other creative types will reenergize its economy.
riding through rain
If the radar looks like this, don’t despair:
Weather.com says it’s 36 deg F outside, and it was raining lightly on my commute this morning. Tools I use to accommodate cold rain are these:
- Rain Suit or Poncho, the cheaper you go, the easier they tear. The cheap stuff lasts me one season.
- Wooly hat under helmet
- Gloves, preferably waterproof. Right now I have plastic bags to cover my fuzzy gloves, if necessary.
- Sunglasses. Even though it’s cloudy, I don’t like stinging drops in my eyes.
- Fenders. Today I used the SKS raceblade fenders, which are so-so in my opinion.
- Lights, duh.
- Boots, see photo below
- If you’re miserable, sing a song, recite a poem, laugh. It works, trust me.
- Boots + Powergrip straps = dry, warm, harmonious
Denton Cycling Renaissance
I don’t want to parrot what our friends at Bike Friendly Oak cliff posted today, but it describes exactly what I’d like to see happen in Denton. A cycling renaissance. Pave the way with intelligent & connected bike routes, safe routes to school, racks at destinations, community bike education, and we’ll see a transformation that attracts good people, the same people who want to move to Portland, Chicago, Austin, Davis, Boston, etc. The key seems to be that those places have voices, voices of cycling/pedestrian advocacy that work cooperatively with the city and citizens.
I see an NTDaily editorial article from today that hints at big changes to come from UNT and the city working together to relieve some stressful traffic congestion around the UNT campus. The areas from Jagoe to Bonnie Brae on Oak and Hickory get so crowded with cars that cyclists have no choice but to occupy the lanes, and cars/buses/etc get trapped behind them. It’s stressful and dangerous, and the relief will be tangible.
I consider that a pretty significant change, and if we like the results, we should all encourage the city to seek more such improvement. Not only are they here to serve us, they are happy to serve us, the citizens. If you review the annual citizen survey mentioned in my previous post, you can see the city response to citizen feedback. In that response, you can see that the top two complaints are mentioned and responded to by the mayor. Cycling and pedestrian paths are on number three on that list of calls for change, folks, and the city knows it.
Top 3 City services rated as Fair or Poor:
- Street Maintenance: 65.3%
- Code Enforcement: 42.2%
- Bicycle and walking paths: 38.9%
The Hickory bike lane was paved in the mid-90’s, and the Hinkle bike lane was done even longer ago. Plenty of cyclists constantly use both of those bike lanes. With all the talk of stimulus and infrastructure investment, that makes this the perfect time to expand cycling and pedestrian pathways.
