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Leaders, advocates call to speed up bike plan as Dallas lags behind other Texas cities

People walk and bike on the Katy Trail Thursday, June 28, 2023, in Dallas.
Yfat Yossifor
/
KERA
City leaders and cycling advocates say the city needs a faster timeline to expand its multi-modal bike path system.

Cycling advocates in Dallas say the city needs to ramp up its bike plan timeline before leaders approve a final version in May.

This comes after planners told the city's Transportation and Infrastructure committee last week that Dallas lags behind its peers in the total number of designated bike path miles.

“It was a little bit shocking to see just how far behind we are,” said Fernando Trueba with the Dallas Bicycle Coalition. “That pushed us to really start to focus on what we want to see this year and in the next 10 to 20 years from the bike plan.”

Kathryn Rush, chief planner of transportation and public works, told leaders the city currently has 204 miles of bicycle paths across the city. That’s less than half the number of miles in Austin, Houston and San Antonio, which each have at least 500 miles of bike paths.

“We are ahead in terms of numbers like physically separated bike lanes,” Rush said. “This is just to point out that while some numbers are lower, there are some key numbers that are mattering more and more like protected bike lanes that actually are higher than other cities.”

Rush told the council that phase one of the draft bike plan includes building out 83 miles of new paths in the next five years. The city also plans to remove some paths, so planners aim to have a total of 231 miles by 2030.

Phase two of the plan calls for building out 197 new miles over the next 20 years.

District 5 council member Jaime Resendez told planners the timeline for implementing phase two needs a “sense of urgency.”

“I think this is something that we need to work on. There's got to be a better way,” Resendez said. “There's got to be a way to do some of these things sooner.”

Trueba with the Dallas Bicycle Coalition told KERA the city needs to maintain its $4.2 million budget for the bike plan. The coalition has been working with planners to improve the city’s bike plan as it nears final approval in May.

“Slowly rolling out is not the best way forward, but we definitely need to start catching up,” Trueba said.

He added the coalition wants the city to build at least 10 miles of new bike paths each year.

“It's a lot to ask for ... from a city that has been built for cars,” Trueba said. “There's going to have to be a cultural shift in terms of the primary mode of getting around here in Dallas.”

The city plans to gather more public input on the draft plan starting late February.

Pablo Arauz Peña is KERA’s growth and infrastructure reporter. Got a tip? Email Pablo at parauzpena@kera.org. You can follow him on X @pabloaarauz.

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Pablo Arauz Peña is the Growth and Infrastructure Reporter for KERA News.