Chic Boutique Ride December 11th

Dallas Cycle Chic has planned a holiday bike tour of locally-owned boutiques in the West Village and on Henderson Ave. Starting at Transit Bikes, the group will leave for Demerara at 1pm, then head off to Gypsy Wagon, Pandemonium, Another Time & Place, and We Are 1976, to return to the West Village around 4.

If you haven’t mustered the get-go to navigate the streets form the West Village or around Henderson, this ride should give you a few good side-street routes. Here‘s some good info to help you get to the West Village by way of the Katy Trail or DART rail.

And there will be snacks and drinks along the way to keep you biking and shopping in tip-top shape. Some stores will even have shopping specials for the cyclists (10% off at Gypsy Wagon and 60% off at Another Time & Place since they’re relocating their shop.) It’s the first of three anticipated Chic Boutique Rides around town so keep an eye out for more to come.

Dallas Cycle Chic, one of the newer organizations in the bicycle community in Dallas, promotes bicycling as neighborhood transportation without the need for special cycling gear or cycling clothes. So get out your holiday sweater, and your new holiday shopping shoes.  Come early to Transit Bikes for a tuneup, a rear wheel rack, bike lights and stocking stuffers. The variety of shops include womens and mens clothes, bike-sized home furnishings and little doodads for friends and family. Bring your kids, your friends, and support your local shops with eco-friendly transportation.

Bike Friendly Oak Cliff’s recommendation to the Oak Cliff Gateway Committee

It has been brought to our attention that the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce is recommending a change to the 2011 Dallas Bike Plan that would directly endanger the lives of pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers by removing safety buffers originally developed by roadway engineering experts, the community, and city leaders. This alternate solution dramatically changes the existing plan and places the roadway’s most marginalized users (children, and seniors) directly at risk of exposure to high-speed ambulance traffic without any protective measures to reduce accident risks. This revision also is in direct opposition to safer “complete street” recommendations encouraged by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and the American Association for Retired People (AARP). Finally, this change would expose our city to potential lawsuits by accident victims who would reference the removal of safety measures recommended within the original plan.

The buffered bike lane recommendation by the 2011 Dallas Bike Plan for Colorado Boulevard (from Bishop to Beckley) allows a “safety zone” for children and seniors who regularly access Lake Cliff Park, James Hogg Elementary School, and minimizes their conflict potential when crossing by converting the street to a 2 lane vehicular road, with center turn lane. The center turn lane also acts as an added layer of protection as dedicated emergency ambulance traffic is focused toward the center and away from the edges which minimizes the potential for accidents by pedestrians and bicyclists. A recommendation is being made by the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce to remove these safety measures and maintain a wider, high-speed 4 lane vehicular-focused road with shared bike lane markings only which increases the potential for conflict by ambulance traffic and area school children. Adding to the potential for accidents, the inclusion of a proposed level 2 trauma center off of Colorado which will only double the exposure to risk if the road is maintained as a 4-lane vehicular (with center turn lane) focused street. Currently, seniors who cross Colorado by foot and motorized scooter are greatly exposed to danger by the road’s wider lanes and curved landscape which creates limited sight-lines and places them in a larger zone of risk as they cross multiple roads.

As an advocate for safer streets for all uses, our organization cannot endorse a plan that removes safety guards and purposely exposes area children, seniors, and bicyclists to greater risks by high-speed ambulance traffic. The buffered bike lane proposal was recommended by nationally renowned engineering consultants who have designed streets throughout the country and have years of expertise in safely planning roads in front of hospitals, fire departments, schools, residential zones, and commercial districts. Recent studies in New York City have shown that streets with bicycle infrastructure lower accident rates for all users (pedestrian, bicycle, and auto) by 40-50% (http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/bike_lanes_memo.pdf). Throughout the Oak Cliff Gateway study area, we recommend maintaining or bolstering the current 2011 Dallas Bike Plan recommendations. There are two options available for this segment of Colorado Boulevard: a roadway that exposes people to greater risk, and a roadway that mitigates exposure and limits accident potential. The two lane, buffered bike lane recommendation fulfills the latter.

Developing unsafe streets is an outdated, and unsafe proposition

Last night, a 55 year old man was critically injured by a hit-and-run vehicle at Cedar Springs Road and Reagan Streets. The individual was crossing a 4-lane road in a popular area of Oak Lawn.
Though the accident was tragic, the potential to reduce this man’s risk is possible with an engineering solution that reduces accident rates for all road users (pedestrians, bicycles, and cars), and that is simply to add bike-lanes. New York City has shown accident reductions of 40-50% by all modes when re-engineering their streets with bike lanes (http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/bike_lanes_memo.pdf). How does this occur? The crossing distance and exposure to risk by high-speed vehicles is cut dramatically. Also, the bike-lane adds a “buffer” between cars and pedestrians walking on the sidewalk.

The following article (http://crosscut.com/2009/09/03/transportation/19210/Sharrows-are-a-sham-solution-for-bike-lanes/) by Crosscut in Seattle notes that “bike sharrows” alone are “a sham solution for bike lanes…and do little more than enable politicians to claim more bike miles.”
The reason for this is that the “safety buffer” created for pedestrians and bicycles is completely removed and exposure to risk remains elevated. When the Dallas Bike Plan was developed in 2010-2011, the crucial understanding for this lowering of risk was incorporated into the plans for our City’s revised infrastructure. The recent request to amend these changes by the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce are in direct dispute of known national data for what creates accidents and what allows for a safe street.

Physically Separated Bike Lane - Creates safety buffer for pedestrians and bicyclists

Bike lanes are not just for bicyclists, but develop a streetscape that shows real improvement to safety, increased economics, health, and the easing of traffic for all users. Taking steps to water-down this infrastructure is a step backwards for our city and one that has a foundation in past ideas that have proven detrimental to our long-term growth and safety. If we are to remove this safety barrier, what is being put in place to protect area pedestrians and bicyclists from cars and increased high-speed ambulance traffic?

Dallas Poll Finds Majority Would Reduce Car Lanes for Bikes

Rock star of transportation administration and design, Janette Sadik-Khan, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, while addressing a room full of cyclenerds at the National Bike Summit earlier this year commented, “It’s important to recognize how far we’ve come in such a short period of time. “You can see the kinds of progress all of you are making on some of the most famous streets in the country. You see this on Pennsylvania Avenue, an incredibly historic symbol. You see this on Broadway in my town, on Market Street in San Francisco, on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, on Spruce Street in Philadelphia, on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago and pretty much every street in Portland… The movement is there, the projects are there, and none of this was there just five years ago. All across the country we’ve seen tremendous breakthroughs thanks to everybody here in this room.”

I am not so sure I agree with my hero on this one. I think it is just the right time for America to once again embrace active transportation, biking, walking and riding transit as a lifestyle. Dallas is no different according to the latest survey aimed at gauging our perception of streets and public right of way.

The survey conducted by for the city of Dallas’ Complete Streets Initiative by polling experts at Collective Strength, INC, summarizes the bottom line: significant opportunity exists in Dallas to gain widespread public support for Complete Streets if safety, health and economic development benefits are also emphasized along with maintenance of existing streets. the entire survey can be downloaded Memos 10-14, but here are the highlights.

Looks like we are all in agreement, so lets get the striping trucks painting! Wait who are these people that took the survey? They must all be zealots… The survey was calibrated to mirror age, race, income, gender and geographic area of 2010 census. So statistically, the respondents were in their early thirties, a mix of white, black and hispanic, made about $40K, slightly feminine and largely living in single family homes.

Now motor vehicle injury is the leading cause of death for people ages 5–34 in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control, so maybe this is a generational thing… Maybe, but how many baby-boomers are stuck in traffic right now to ride a stationary bike in a health club? The addition of bike lanes to our city streets can be accomplished in short order. Sadik-Kahn, mentioned previously, added 250 miles of bike friendly streets without straining the budget. Using existing street maintenance dollars, partnering with community organizations and private developers she did more with less.

There are roads being resurfaced all over Dallas this month.  Check out http://www.dallascityhall.com/html/2006_bond_program.html for street projects near you. See a cone, ask for a bike lane!

Poll: Should Colorado Boulevard be a 2 Lane “Complete Street” or 4 Lane “Vehicular Only” Street?

The Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce is endorsing a plan to remove the City of Dallas’ 2011 Bike Plan recommendations and convert the portion of Colorado Boulevard from Bishop Avenue to Beckley from a 2 lane “Complete Street” to a 4 Lane vehicular only suburban modeled street. See the full recommendation and discussion, here.

Examples of the two types of street treatments can be found below:

4 Lane w/center turn lane - Vehicular Focused Street (Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce Recommendation)

2 Lane "Complete Street" - 2011 Dallas Bike Plan Recommendation

The Chamber claims that the roads vehicular-focus is needed to maintain high-speed access through the neighborhood for ambulance traffic. Though healthcare concerns are cited, a CNU study of wide streets noted that “the most significant causal relationships to injury accidents were found to be street width and street curvature”, an issue directly related to Colorado’s current configuration. Also, this consideration runs counter to road recommendations by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who recommends cities implement bicycle lanes to curb obesity trends along with the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Ray LaHood, citing Portland as THE model for 21st century US city planning. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently referenced complete street implementation by name or in principal, and the much anticipated Moving Cooler report released by the Urban Land Institute discusses the impact CS have on lowering greenhouse gases.

With the multitude of families bounding this street in the Kidd Springs neighborhood and East Kessler neighborhood, it’s surprising that measures would be made to endanger children and seniors who cross this street by maintaining a wider vehicular pathway which encourages higher speed traffic. Multiple blind curves exist on Colorado currently, and many pedestrians and bicyclists have been harmed by the streets current configuration. Also, we now know the economic impact of a “Complete Street” can be far greater than the alternative as small businesses have reported greater transactions, while residents and visitors enjoy a more aesthetically appealing street which has a direct affect on value of area homes.

Claims that emergency response times will slow have been vetted by the US Environmental Protection Agency, and a recent study from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine explored how sprawling development patterns have actually shown to increase EMS response time and delay ambulance arrival.

If road capacity and sharing ambulance traffic with a neighborhood street is a concern, an appropriate solution would be to simply direct ambulance traffic to the wider Beckley Avenue entrance. This option would also greatly reduce potential of mixing with traffic by families who use Colorado as their main access to Lake Cliff Park.

We know the numbers of bicyclists of all ages has increased exponentially throughout our community. When we build our streets in North Oak Cliff, we have to keep all ages and all users in mind as we want to build a network that has a long-term view of the neighborhood and the families who will continue to make Oak Cliff a great place to live, work, and play.