Bikes Belong Grant Awarded, Ciclovia to Come!

Bikes Belong’s mission is simple, get more people on bikes more often. They awarded BFOC $5,000 because of you! You got out and road a bike and over the last two years our bicycle ridership has risen 219%. Thank you for riding and supporting our local bicycle shops. Our rides have worked to get the first time and long time riders back in the saddle.

From the grant application:

The funds will support the first car-free streets day in Dallas. It will not only provide a safe and fun event for us, it will also show the appeal of car-free public spaces. The event will include a design contest to demonstrate how a dedicated bicycle facility can be added to an existing bridge to connect the bustling neighborhood of Oak Cliff with downtown. With the recent unanimous adoption of the city of Dallas Bicycle Plan and broad public support for bicycling, the $5,000 grant from Bikes Belong, will further the quick wins Dallas needs to make bicycle infrastructure projects permanent. Dallas has had significant growth in bicycle use over the past two years, these funds will put more people on bikes more often!

THE BIG CHECK!

Check out this video for an example of San Jose’s inaugural car-free event:

As you might expect we will be adding a better block twist to this.

See It Where They Shot It Group Ride

Ride with Bike Friendly Oak Cliff to the screening of RoboCop this weekend. This series being put on by Dallas Observer aims to “See it where they shot it”. The first installment is set for City Hall where scenes from RoboCop where filmed. All the details are here.

Meet at BFOC’s newest bike friendly destination Jonathon’s Oak Cliff at 6:00 PM. Enjoy 10% off all purchases and friendly staff. Bring your ideas for a bike rack as they will be installing one soon and would like to use a local artist. The ride leaves at 7:00PM. Jonathon’s is still BYOB and I believe city hall is dry. Back packs allowed. Bring front and rear lights!

Details:

BFOC Ride to See it where they shot it

6PM meet-up Jonathon’s Oak Cliff 1111 North Beckley

7PM Depart for City Hall

11 PM group ride back to OC

 

 

Video showing mixed traffic on Ross

reposted from the betterblock.org site

One of the key assumptions we were excited to test and debunk during the Ross Project was that Dallas could not create viable pedestrian spaces due to being too hot and car-centric. Specifically, the thought of placing a market in the center of a major arterial was formerly considered untenable and would hurt pedestrians as vehicle sped in and out of the area. What actually happened was traffic was slowed to a safer level giving families, pedestrians and bicyclists a humane environment to traverse while also allowing cars in and out of the area. Also, a portion of Ross that had been given up to vehicle traffic only had now shown the ability to increase economics for the area by allowing a pedestrian market, while showing an opportunity to develop the area as a “place” as opposed to a thoroughfare only. Our streets must be revisioned for people ages 8 – 80 and yesterday proved that we could have “great places” throughout our city. Someone on a blog even mentioned that the space was somewhat “boring” which we took as a huge compliment given that prior to this, people said it would be chaotic and dangerous. Another major find for our team was showing that Dallas citizens would come out, even in a 100 degree summer as long as there were shade features and amenities. In fact, in hindsight, we could have comfortably accommodated 100 trees in the area to help bring the temperature down greatly. The spaces that combined water and shade were very popular and getting a chance to bring out the New York inspired dumpster pool idea was a big hit. We’ll definitely be adding more of those to the mix here on out.

BFOC’er rolling out Dallas Bike Signage Concept for the Ross Boulevard Challenge

Dallas Bike Plan wayfinding signage concept developed by Robbie Good

If you’re planning on heading out to Ross Avenue on Sunday, expect to see some awesome wayfinding signage developed by BFOC’er Robbie Good, of focusEGD.

Dallas Cycle Sunday planned for this weekend

The city of Dallas is sponsoring its first Ciclovia inspired ride, dubbed “Dallasvias”.  Coordinators are planning a “meet-up” downtown at Main Street Garden Park at 10:00AM. At 10:30AM riders will loop around the downtown then head to the Dallas Complete Streets Kickoff/Better Block on Ross Avenue at approximately 11AM. With enough willing participants, Cycle Sunday will continue on to the White Rock Lake Centennial Celebration.

Introducing: Bike Friendly Dallas!

A new bike friendly group has been officially launched!  Bike Friendly Dallas will help to bring together citizens of Dallas on two wheels, and be an aggregate of information from all neighborhoods of the city.

Furthermore, one of it’s main missions will be to ensure the new 2011 Dallas Bike Plan is fully realized, and not become just another dusty plan sitting on the shelves at City Hall!  We will be developing maps to show planned infrastructure that is pending, under construction, or has been completed.  In this way, we all will act as a check on the bike plan as it is being implemented.

Also, the site aggregates other Dallas bike friendly and friends of trails websites to show their latest news, events, and editorials, as well as provides links to our neighbor cities bike friendly groups as well.

We welcome you feedback and we hope that this new bike friendly group will have a positive impact on bicycling culture within the city of Dallas!

Ride with us to the Mavs Parade!

We’re meeting this morning at 9AM at Oddfellows in Bishop Arts to ride over to the Mavs Parade downtown. Join us!

Dallas Complete Streets Kickoff!

The Dallas Complete Street’s Kickoff is on Sunday, June 26th from 11AM – 4PM. Head out to Ross Avenue between Pavillion and N. Hawkins to take part in a “Complete Street” demonstration which will incorporate bike lanes, traffic calming measures, cafe seating, shade, improved landscaping, and change a portion of Ross from a thoroughfare, to a destination. The effort is being spearheaded by the City of Dallas, Team Better Block, Kimley-Horn, Toole Design, and MIG and will bring together elements of the newly adopted Dallas Bike Plan, recommendations from the Dallas 360 Plan, and Forward Dallas. Deep Ellum’s Market will take over a block of Ross to create “Ross Ramblas Market”, inspired by Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain. Community partners include Downtown Dallas Inc.,  Three Sheets, Fellowship Church, Spire Realty, Bryan Place Neighborhood Association, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, DART, and more. Teams will also be competing in a “72 Hour Build a Better Boulevard” Challenge to help activate vacant spaces throughout the area.

Recap of the Hellhound on My Trail Ride

 

Mayoral candidates David Kunkle and Mike Rawlings visit before the ride. photo by Andrea Roberts

Thanks to all who made it out to the Hellhound on My Trail history ride. We had nearly 100 take part, including both mayoral candidates David Kunkle, and Mike Rawlings. The temperature hovered around 95 degrees, but everyone did a good job of riding through the heat. More pics of the ride can be found on Flickr here, and Facebook here. Later that evening, several BFOC’ers cooled off at a front yard Mavs watching party. Couldn’t ask for a better way to end the night!

We want to thank both candidates for joining us for the ride and remind everyone to vote.  Click here to lookup your voting location…early voting ends tomorrow, and Election day is Saturday, June 18th. Also, check out our Q&A’s with Kunkle and Rawlings.

Mayoral Candidate Mike Rawlings along with other riders at the Hellhound on my Trail ride. photo by Andrea Roberts

BFOC post-ride/Mavs watch party

The 2011 Dallas Bike Plan is Unanimously Adopted!

Dallas’s Bike Coordinator, Max Kalhammer, Reviews the 2011 Dallas Bike Plan map

Yesterday, Dallas made great strides in removing itself from the list of “auto-dominated cities” to one that is now embracing the worldwide movement of “complete streets” with bicycling leading the charge. After a year in the making, the city’s 2011 bike plan was unanimously adopted by the city council with no opposition and encouraging words by several of the council members who championed the project, including Angela Hunt, Sheffie Kadane, Linda Koop, Delia Jasso, and Pauline Medrano.

 

The city has come a long way in erasing its 2008 status of “Worst City for Bicyling” by Bicycling Magazine. This new plan incorporates a series of modern road treatments including bike lanes, cycle tracks, shared lane markings, enhanced route systems, and completes connectivity with our existing trail system. It’s taken a long time, and a lot of hard work went into the effort with much work still to come, but we’ve collectively moved a large obstacle out of our way.