In a city built for cars, Dallas faces growing pains when it comes to making neighborhoods bike-friendly.
City planners are working on updating the city’s bike plan for the first time in more than a decade. It comes as demand grows for an improved bike network across the city.
Dallas Director of Transportation Gus Khankarli gave a status update to city council members Wednesday.
“The infrastructure was built for vehicles, and was built for all these things,” he said. “So now we're having to retrofit.”
A city survey found that 87% of respondents support bike-friendly policy changes.
A city survey shows that the great majority of respondents support bike-friendly policy changes.
“We have heard a lot of people mention, just about conflicts with cars being a concern that people wanted to address to feel more comfortable biking,” said Kathryn Rush, chief planner with the transportation department.
Advocates with the Dallas Bicycle Coalition are calling on the city to add 500 miles of bike paths in the next 10 years or 50 miles a year.
Theupdated planaims to improve – or build – 536 miles of bike paths to increase connectivity to the existing network.
According to the city's timeline, the final updated plan is scheduled to be adopted by early next year.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect clarification from the Dallas Bicycle Coalition that they want to see 500 miles added bike paths in the next decade, not 50 miles.
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