New to the block, Welcome, Bike Friendly Greenville Ave!

Continuing the progression of great, local bicycle advocacy, Bike Friendly Greenville Ave is now official (actually we’re just late in reporting it !  Looks like they’ve got an event happening on May 31, 2012 called The Gville Weekly, 6pm. Here’s the rub:

Break out your student ID’s and get ready for some live music in the heart of Dallas’ arts district. We’ll ride from Blue Goose to the arts district and enjoy the latter portion of “patio sessions” in front of the W opera house. Then we’ll roll over to the DMA and enjoy the groovy sounds of Freddy Jones in the atrium (“Students” with ID’s are free, adult price is $10). If we’re not feeling that, we can figure something else out. Options are always available.

The ride is about 3.5mi each way. http://goo.gl/maps/ANqH

Send me suggestions, if you have something else in mind!

Don’t forget bike lights (front and back), a helmet, and a smile

Dallas Parks Foundation’s $100,000 Challenge

Yes, we’re late posting this but hey, sue us, we have lives.  Below is from Chris Paddison
Hike & Bike Co-Chair of the Dallas Parks Foundation.  They’re creating a Dallas Hike and Bike Initiative Fund to help spur development of 6 City of Dallas highlighted projects.  You can donate to help raise matching funds here!

The Dallas Parks Foundation (DPF) is focused on creating a cleaner and
healthier Dallas through the implementation of the newly adopted 2011
Dallas Bike Plan. To assist in this effort DPF has secured an anonymous
donation of $100,000 to be used towards doubling your contribution.

To reach our goal, the Dallas Parks Foundation has created the Dallas Hike
and Bike Initiative Fund. Your gift will help provide the necessary funding to
complete high-priority projects within the Dallas bikeway system.

The first step is to complete the six on-street bicycle infrastructure projects
as identified by the City. On the reverse of this page is a list of these
priorities, as well as a map showing the limits and connectivity of these
projects to each other and existing trails.

There are many ways to make your contribution – call 972-803-1555, email
samuel@dallasparksfoundation.org, or visit www.dallasparksfoundation.
org or indicate your contribution at the bottom of this page and mail in the
envelope provided.

Your contribution is important. Your dollars, doubled, can create a better
Dallas.

Sincerely,

Chris Paddison
Hike & Bike Co-Chair

Six on-Street Bike Priorities

Group Ride: On the Trail of Lee Harvey Oswald, June 16th History Tour

In partnership with the Oak Cliff Film Festival, BFOC is bringing back the On the Trail of Lee Harvey Oswald history tour bicycle ride on Saturday, June 16th, at 11:30AM starting at Dealey Plaza in Downtown Dallas, and passing the infamous residences of JFK’s alleged assassin. This was the group ride that launched BFOC in 2008, and is one of our favorites. Our ride will take us over the 1912 Houston Street Viaduct, crossing into North Oak Cliff, and stopping at pivotal spots from that fateful day in 1963.

This ride will be weather permitting so check back for updates. Highlights of the trip will include:

- Meeting in front of the Sixth Floor Museum
- Riding over the 1912 Houston Street Viaduct
- stopping at 1026 N. Beckley, last residence of Lee Harvey Oswald
- Following LHO’s escape route to the site where JD. Tippit was shot
- Visit the Texas Theatre, site of LHO’s capture
- Ride through the Bishop Arts District
- stopping at 214 W. Neely, site of infamous Oswald “Backyard Photos”

View the Facebook event here.

2008 BFOC Tracing the Footsteps of Lee Harvey Oswald Group Ride (photo by Brian Green)

Swimsuit Ride to KXT Summer Cut, Get Discounted Tickets

Headlining the KXT 91.7 music festival, called Summer Cut are the Flaming Lips. Now when the Lips went to Portland to shoot their latest video they called upon cyclist to ride nekked and carry lead singer Wayne Coyne in his giant plastic bubble. I’ve edited a picture so you cant see the pit hair and dreadlocks of these north-westerners.

Wayne Coyen riding a wave a hippy cyclist.

Dallas has more style than that. We like our rides sexy, but accessible to all riders no matter the condition of  their posteriors. So, in conjunction with Dallas Cycle Style we will be riding from Main Street Garden to Fair Park in bikins, boy shorts, banana hammocks, 1920′s wool swim trunks or whatever you might don for a beach party.

If you have never been to a Lips concert make sure to head by the general store and stuff your pockets with inflatable beach balls, water guns and balloons. Oh yeah and if you want a reserved seat, we got the hook-up. No annoying service charges if you ride a bike to the event! Thank you KXT, be sure to donate for their summer sponsorship drive here. It only takes a minute and you are helping to support the only station in North Texas that plays local alternative music!

Maybe Owne Wilson will show-up? Kate likely will not!!

Details:

6PM Downtown Main Street Garden. We will splash around in the fountain and leave by 6:15 for Fair Park.

After show, 10PM or so meet where we parked our bikes and head back to Downtown.

Seats:

Buy a cheap lawn seat for $20 or use this KXT F&F Order Form to receive a discount on sweet reserved seating. A couple steps to this process…email bfoakcliff@gmail.com to get another email to then send the form to another email. Sorry bout that. You can also get four friends together and get a sweet deal!

Updated: Local Discounts for Bicyclists!

BFOC is proud to have partnered with several local businesses to offer discounts for anyone who rides a bicycle to the merchants listed below.  This discount program has been recently updated and expanded.  The list of merchants is permanently on the right side of our homepage.  If you see the sticker above on a merchants window, they’re an official discount merchant.

If you are a business owner or a customer and would like to offer or help secure discounts for cyclists, please contact Heather Lytle at hmlytle@gmail.com.  Thanks for your support!

• Alchemy Salon
  317 N Bishop Ave
  Dallas, TX‎ 75208
  10% Off all services
• Belmont Hotel
  901 Fort Worth Avenue
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% Off Rooms, Some blackout dates apply
• Bolsa
  614 W Davis St
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase
• Bolsa Mercado
  634 West Davis
  Dallas TX 75208.
  10% off prepared foods (grocery excluded)
• Chicken Scratch
  2303 Pittman St.
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase
• CocoAndre Chocolatier
  831 West Davis Street
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off a purchase of $15 or more
• Cozy Cottage Children’s Boutique
  336 W 8th St
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase, excluding sale items.
• Epiphany
  412 N. Bishop
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% Off Bike Friendly Oak Cliff T-Shirts
• Eno’s Tavern
  407 N. Bishop Ave
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase
• The Foundry 
  2303 Pittman St.
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase
• Good Space
  408 W. Eighth St. Suite 108
  Dallas, TX 75208
  ½ off on the deposit or 1st month’s rent on any of our available apartments
• Green Pet
  315 N. Bishop Ave.
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase, excluding pet food.
• Hunky’s Hamburgers
  321 N Bishop Ave
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off a purchase of at least $5
• Neighborhood
  411 N. Bishop
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off design services.
• Nova
  1417 W. Davis
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase
• Oak Cliff Bicycle Company
  408 N. Bishop Ave
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off OCBC apparel
• Oddfellows
  316 W 7th Street
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase
• Oil and Cotton
  837 W. 7th Street
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off retail and classes
• Repotted
  700 W. Davis St.
  Dallas, Texas 75208
  10% off purchase
• Salvage House Boutique
  301 Melba Street
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% off purchase
• Shambhala Soaps
  320 W 7th St
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% of purchase, excluding sale items or massages
• SMOKE
  901 Fort Worth Avenue
  Dallas, TX 75208
  10% Off all meals
• Sweet 200 Salon
  738 W Davis St
  Dallas, TX 75208
  50% off retail products (Nioxin excluded) when coming in for a salon appointment
• Texas Theatre
  231 W. Jefferson Blvd.
  Dallas, TX 75208
  $2 off ticket price for movies
• Tradewinds Pub
  2843 West Davis Street
  Dallas, TX 75211 First beer FREE! All drinks afterward happy hour price when you ride your bike
• Vintagemobile
  Click on link above for location
  15% off apparel and accessories
• Zola’s Everyday Vintage
  414 N Bishop Ave
  Dallas, TX 75208
  20% off any purchase over $25

Newly Updated Fort Worth Bike Lane / Bike Route Map

Reposted from Fortworthology.com

Written & Photographed by Kevin Buchanan

Thanks to the City of Fort Worth for passing this along – it’s a fully up-to-date map of central city Fort Worth bike infrastructure, as of this moment. Solid blue lines are on-street bike lanes, solid red lines are shared lane routes, solid green lines are off-street trails, and dashed lines are planned installations of their respective types. (Plus the solid black lines downtown, which are the Houston & Throckmorton shared bus/bike lanes.)

This really shows how far Fort Worth has come in a very short time, as the majority of these routes have been added quite recently. I figured the map would be quite useful to a lot of Fort Worthology readers, so I made the JPEG version above – and I’ve set up a download link to a PDF version that also includes the city’s list of bicyclists’ rights and responsibilities.

Just so you know, we’re jealous and happy for those bicyclists in Ft. Worth who have seen a huge increase in bicycle infrastructure in one of the most conservative cities in the country.  We’re not angry that Dallas STILL doesn’t have one mile of on street bicycle infrastructure, or that even giving money to the city encourages our May 2011 passed Dallas Bike Plan to grow.  The city says it doesn’t have the money.  Well, cash strapped cities across the country still seem to be growing their bicycle plans per the above article.  It’s been over a year now and, yes, we have bike sharrows on MLK.  That’s a very small step forward, but for new bicyclists and those that are veterans, there are still dangers that lead to horrible accidents.  The system needs to grow quicker.  Bicycle infrastructure has statistically been shown to lower the risk of bicyclist vs. vehicular accidents.  Here’s hoping that this is the calm before the storm.

Film Festival Discounts for Cyclists!

The Oak Cliff Film Festival organizers have a special place in their hearts for cyclists. They’ve put together quite a line-up June 14-17th and they’re offering cyclist discounts. For those of you who plan to make it a weekend-long biking affair, you’re entitled to half-price festival badges (use password f4iend50f0akclifffilmfest). You can park blocks away and bike up or bike from home, but you make your scouts honor pledge to help relieve parking woes and receive your thank-you gift in advance. If you’re inclined to see just a film or few, ride your bike to the box office and receive a 50% discount. That’s $5 off the $10 ticket!

Films showing at: Texas Theatre, Kessler Theatre, Bishop Arts Theatre, The Belmont, Oil & Cotton, El Sibil, the Turner House and the Dallas Zoo. See the full line-up.

And the über-special cyclist part of the weekend, you ask? There are two!

BFOC will be hosting the On the Trail of Lee Harvey Oswald group ride Sunday the 17th. Full details coming soon, but I’m pretty sure I overhead the ride will end at the zoo’s 8pm showing of Fantastic Mr Fox. (I’m counting on it – the film’s showing in the middle of the big cats exhibits!) [Update: The ride will end in plenty of time to catch a nap before the 8:30pm showing at the zoo!]

The New Belgium Brewery bike – for raffle.

And, in addition to tasting New Belgium Brewery’s newest brew, you can enter the raffle to win the New Belgium BIKE! Yeah.

It’ll be a full weekend of film fun and bicycle love. Get your film festival tickets at oakclifffilmfestival.com or get your cyclist discount badge here (use password f4iend50f0akclifffilmfest.) The Oswald ride, as always, is free and open to all ages.

Dallas, You’ve Created a Monster

In our last post, I discussed how post-war government intervention systematically dismantled hundreds of years of pedestrian oriented environments by forcing property owners to carve up giant swathes of their private land for parking. What I failed to touch upon was the unsustainable levels of entitlement that now exist for people demanding endless parking and traffic-free roadways throughout our city because of this decision. Like a Ponzi scheme, the pyramid eventually buckles from its own weight. What we’re witnessing today is a generational divide where outdated philosophies are represented by a leadership that refuses to acknowledge the obvious fact that their children are all saying, “I’d rather live in Austin/Portland/NY/SF/Chicago than Dallas.” Stubbornly, the parents keep saying, “they’ll come back for the jobs,” without realizing that the new jobs are starting to go where the people want to be.

Michael Morris, head of DFW’s metropolitan planning organization (NCTCOG) and lead proponent of the Trinity Toll Road.

We’re well aware of the $1.4 Billion levee toll road, and the Winfrey Point parking debacle at the Dallas Arboretum (both ironic due to their nature vs. machine conflict), but another instance also making the news is the “lack of parking” headlines in the historic (and walkable) Bishop Arts District. Every week we’re seeing one costly issue after another related to our endless pursuit of maintaining unsustainable suburban development patterns, and the solutions are always the same: take more land, and give it to cars. For some reason, the adage “When you’re in a hole, stop digging” has been completely ignored, and I’m beginning to become numb to the monthly, “I’m finally leaving Dallas!” emails that friends keep sending me.

Janette Sadik-Khan, head of NYC’s Department of Transportation

For anyone curious about what the new leadership of cities is like, check out this interview with Janette Sadik-Kahn, the head of NYCDOT and chief architect for all those major new pedestrian and bike infrastructure improvements you’ve read about throughout New York City. The “Big Apple” is the textbook example of traffic congestion, yet she’s taking away entire boulevards to create pedestrian plazas, and while naysayers claimed the sky would fall, the opposite occurred. Economics improved, traffic improved, bicycle usage increased and most importantly safety improved.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom painting a bike lane

While other major US cities are disincentivizing auto use and incentivizing mixed transportation models in order to balance their costly strain on infrastructure, we continue to do the reverse.  It’s obvious that our leadership will have to eventually take a stand (and a few arrows) and say,”we’re going to have to try something different,” or else they’ll be the embarrassing “Before” picture to an inevitable leader who decides to take the path that every other city around them is taking. Like a defiant George Wallace in 1963, Dallas is waiting for its Bobby Kennedy to lead a brave new path.

“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.” Robert Kennedy

Stolen Bike Alert!

If you see this bicycle, please call 911.  If you know anything, please post to our Stolen Bikes forum:

4/18/2012  Stolen red Rans Formula LE

- Stolen April 18 from Winnetka Heights (75208)

- Serial number is 6X05070052

- Seat back carrier, computer, tail lights, SPDs

Subsidizing Sprawl

In Dallas, we’re currently faced with a heated debate on growth and the need for improved infrastructure to facilitate future development. Jim Schutze wrote a post on Unfair Park about the recent tollroad debate and how the Mayor is promoting regionalism vs. localism. I was struck by several commenters who dismissed urbanism and multi-modal transit options as a novelty and something that a slim minority cared about. What really amazed me was the lack of understanding many voiced in favor of our modern car-centric, sprawling development…a network that was completely brought about by massive government intervention and subsidization. The free market would never have created something so wasteful and inefficient on its own. An example I gave recently was the following:

If you wanted to develop a small bakery in your neighborhood, you would not be able to due to zoning restrictions brought about by local government separating basic uses (homes here, business there). This is the first step in deconstructing pedestrian oriented environments. It’s no longer the industrial revolution, yet we still base much of our land use on the ideas of separating factories from homes.

Next, let’s say you finally discover a plot of land where you can build your own bakery. Before you even begin construction, the local government will require you to use at least 40% of your private land for free parking. No if’s, and’s, or but’s…you’ve just been told by the government what to do with your property and your valuable retail shelf space has been truncated with the slash of a pen. Now, let’s extrapolate this out to hundreds of other businesses who own private land and are forced to provide everyone free parking. At some point, the system has been sufficiently gamed to where it no longer makes sense to walk.

You just drive, my business will make sure you have a free parking spot.

Next, let’s say you want to save money by living above your business and operating on the ground floor. Again, this option has been regulated out of existence, further promoting auto-centric development because now you have to live in the residence zone, and work in the business zone.

So far, we’ve separated land uses by great distances, required private property owners to ensure their land was split in half for free parking, and cut off the potential for live/work environments. It’s fairly difficult to justify pedestrian-oriented development at this point. For what it’s worth, we’d been allowed to do all of these things for hundreds of years prior to government intervention and our communities did fine. In fact, many of the problems we face today are related to our need to try and manage the unsustainable nature of suburban sprawl. From the subprime mortgage crises to constant highway/tollroad development (which we can’t afford to maintain), we’re continually having to accommodate an unnatural development pattern.

Okay, we’re not done yet. Now that we’ve separated uses and incentivized cars over other modes of transit, your bakery is going to have a harder time competing because now the all-in-one store can do away with your business model. Since everyone is now driving, it’s inconvenient to hop from one store to the next…you might as well mix the bakery, with the farmers market, and the butcher, and the pharmacy. Voila, small business can barely compete while the multi-national box store can now offer loaves of bread for pennies and chalk it up as a loss leader. Hey, that’s the free market working…except, the market was completely dominated by government intervention throughout the chain and we’re not even close to being finished. Also, though we’re saving a dollar on bread, the social fabric of our community is beginning to erode because the Super Target doesn’t seem to want to pay for the local school’s baseball uniforms, but Joe’s Deli, which is no longer around, was always supporting the team. If you don’t believe that’s the case, you don’t own a small business. As a local restaurant owner, I can tell you firsthand that we’re asked for and give out donations to neighborhood fundraisers (PTA’s, girl/boy scouts, soccer teams, chess clubs, etc.) on a weekly basis. Head to any community silent auction and you’ll see nothing but local products being offered as prizes…Home Depot and Tom Thumb are surprisingly absent.

Notice, 2/3rd’s of this lot is for free parking.

Now let’s look at the land itself that we’re developing on today. A 250 foot block on a classic Main Street in any downtown would have contained ten commercial buildings built next to eachother (saving on distances for utilities, and creating greater energy efficiency) with retail establishments on the first floor, service related businesses on the second floor, and space for business owners to live on third and fourth floors. Now, thanks to zoning and more, we can fit roughly 2 to 3 businesses on that same plot of land, and they’re separated by more free parking that isn’t really free. This is why your average suburban block will only contain a fast food chain, a gas station, and an auto parts store. Small businesses can be developed in shopping strips that are tied to large chain retailers, but once that chain decides to move on (from Wal-Mart to Super Wal-Mart), then your business will die a slow death as your customers move on to the next, larger strip two miles down the road.

You wouldn’t be allowed to build this today if you wanted to.

We haven’t even begun to touch suburban housing. In 1934, the Federal Housing Administration was created which subsidized middle class families moves to the newly developed suburbs. The Veterans Administration and the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) mortgage loan program provided over eleven million low-cost mortgages after WWII. These mortgages, which typically cost less per month than paying rent, only insured homes of a typical type and size – generally new single-family suburban construction. Furthermore, a home insured by the FHA was required to be of a certain size and quality desired by those of above-average means, to guarantee quick resale of the home. FHA did not support renovations of already-existing homes, construction of row houses, mixed-use buildings, and other urban housing types. These policies led to deterioration of the urban housing stock and disinvestment in existing urban housing.

Alright, we still have the Federal Highway program and a host of other government interventions that sufficiently tore apart pedestrian oriented environments that existed naturally for hundreds of years in favor of heavily subsidized (from the oil pumped out of the ground to the GM badge on the grill) auto dependency. Sadly, it was only in your grandparents generation when you could have opened that bakery at the end of the block, lived on the top floor, while the community walked by and picked up a loaf of bread.

So next time someone says, “public transit doesn’t work because it doesn’t go near my home”, remind them that had government not intervened, their home would have been next to the train station.