Will Dallas Make Room for Bikes?

The Cyclesomatic bicycle festival wasn't just about leisurely bike rides about town.  As part of the event, the non-profit Bike Friendly Oak Cliff organized a ride to City Hall to kick-start the commitment to improving bicycle conditions in car-happy Dallas.

These days, bicycling has been pedaled front and center as the more conscious, healthier mode of transportation all over the world.  Paris, Barcelona and other major European cities have implemented grab-n-go bike rentals all over town, while cities nationwide have taken massive steps to reorganize infrastructure for equal bikers' rights, and at the very least, have begun the discussion on what needs to be done to become more bicycle-centric. 

Place Dallas in the latter cateory with the recent bike-in to the doorstep of City Council.  Council members Angela Hunt and Pauline Medrano optimistically addressed the fleet with quasi-concrete action, including the possibility of additional and enlarged bike lanes, sidewalks and crosswalks on city streets, the construction of physical barriers around bike lanes for safety, and new, special signals to control bicycle-infused traffic. 

Beyond the logistical steps proposed by Hunt, Medrano and their colleagues Dave Neumann, Ann Margolin, Delia Jasso, Sheffie Kadane and Jerry Allen the bicycling community demands a big-picture shift in the way Dallas transportation works and thinks.  At this point, even "demonstration projects" were mentioned in the hypothetical sense, so regardless of the extent of the city's response, and despite council member Jasso's proclamation to "stay tuned for something...big," it's likely to be a long ride.  The appointment of a dedicated bicycle coordinator by the city is perhaps the most promising note for the advancement of bicycling infrastructure. 

In the meantime, Fort Worthology shared one cyclist's plea to spare the lives of vulnerable bikers when driving in a characteristically hilarious Craigslist post.  

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