Last night was a history-making night for Fort Worth’s transformation into a more livable, sustainable city.

At last night’s Fort Worth City Council meeting, a mass of bicyclists turned out in support of the Bike Fort Worth plan, which the council would be voting on adopting and implementing.  Groups from the newly formed Bike Friendly Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Bicycling Association, and the LMRA Bicycle Club joined individual supporters to express their enthusiasm over the proposal.  (We loved the variety in the groups – supporters took many forms, male and female, from the hipsters to the sports riders to daily commuters to families with kids.)

After several supportive speeches from the public – including the heads of the FWBA and LMRA clubs, as well as Tarrant County Tax Assessor and bike commuter Betsy Price – the plan received enthusiastic endorsement from the council, especially Councilmembers Joel Burns and Carter Burdette.  Finally, Mayor Moncrief also spoke out strongly in favor of the plan, saying that Fort Worth deserves real transportation alternatives.

We are very happy to report that when the vote was taken, the Fort Worth City Council unanimously voted to approve and implement the ambitious Bike Fort Worth bicycle transportation plan.  After the vote, there was a standing ovation from the entire council chamber.

Bike Fort Worth is a dramatic shift in transportation planning for the city of Fort Worth.  As it is implemented, the plan will dramatically reshape, expand, and enhance the city’s bicycle transportation network.  At present, Fort Worth has just over 100 miles of bike infrastructure – most of which is off-street recreational paths (the Trinity Trails), with the rest mainly in a handful of on-street sharrow bike routes and a scant 6.4 miles of dedicated bike lanes.  Bike Fort Worth calls for the expansion of the bike transportation network to nearly 1,000 miles, with 224.7 miles of off-street trails, the conversion of the 1.4 miles of bus lanes downtown into bus & bike lanes, 218.3 miles of on-street sharrow bike routes, and an incredible 480.3 miles of dedicated on-street bike lanes, with lanes to the city limits and dense webs in the urban core.  The plan even spells out the need for very progressive infrastructure where needed, including Bicycle Boulevards in residential neighborhoods, bike boxes, bike-only traffic signals (and signal recalibration for bike routes), contra-flow bike lanes for one-way streets, physically separated on-street cycle tracks, and more.

In addition, the plan calls for big increases in the amount and quality of bike parking.  There are also provisions for writing minimum bike parking requirements into zoning, establishment of bike commuter stations at transit hubs like the Intermodal Transportation Center linking into bus, commuter rail, and the planned modern streetcar system, the creation of a city bike fleet for city employee usage, establishment of bike counts, education programs for cyclists and drivers on safe on-street interactions, requiring all bridges built on bike transportation routes to provide dedicated bike lanes or safe, spacious sidepaths for bike usage, new city traffic ordinances requiring drivers to yield to bike when making turns to prevent left & right hook crashes, new city traffic ordinances prohibiting drivers from opening parked car doors into oncoming traffic, new city traffic ordinances requiring a minimum of 3 feet of clearance when passing a bicycle (since Governor Perry vetoed the state-wide safe passing law, cities are taking things into their own hands), and much more.

Part of the success of getting Bike Fort Worth adopted by the city goes to the incredible turnout of support at last night’s city council meeting.  Bike Fort Worth supporters filled council chambers to standing-room-only.

One of the support activities last night was the inaugural group ride of the newly-formed Bike Friendly Fort Worth.  Created in the Near Southside by Brad Blessing, Bike Friendly Fort Worth joins the quickly growing list of local bike advocacy organizations that got started by Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, and now also includes Bike Friendly Richardson, Bike Friendly Denton, and Bike Friendly Knox-Henderson.  Bike Friendly Fort Worth organized a group ride to City Hall last night, running down the Trinity Trails from the Rogers Road trailhead to Foch Street, then up West 7th Street straight into Downtown Fort Worth to City Hall.  The ride was organized by Brad and longtime Fort Worth bike advocate Bernie Scheffler of Trinity Bicycles.

About 35 people gathered at the trailhead.  Despite the cold, everybody was excited and smiling at the prospect of showing support for better bike infrastructure in Fort Worth.  CBS 11 showed up to interview Brad and film the ride.  The ride rolled out after 6:00.

Due to construction work on the Trinity Trails at University & Rogers Road, the group road up Rogers, past the Gallery 1701 and Colonial Park infill developments, through University Park Village.  Using UPV’s traffic signal, the group crossed University onto Old University, riding up behind Ol’ South Pancake House and then linking into the Trinity Trails in Trinity Park.

Through Trinity Park, the group split between the trail itself and the adjacent park street due to the volume of riders.  After cruising through Trinity Park, the group headed out of the park onto Foch Street through the West 7th development.

At West 7th, the group paused to get everybody together again and then turned out onto 7th Street itself.  Riding up 7th past West 7th, Montgomery Plaza, and So7, the group then cross the bridge over the Trinity and rolled straight into Downtown.  Turning onto Lamar by the Neil P. and Burnett Park, the group rode down to Texas Street, turned left, and headed straight to City Hall.  (The group nicely illustrated the need for better bike parking, which had to be improvised via railings and such.)

Inside, Bike Friendly Fort Worth joined similar contingents from FWBA and LMRA, each with 30+ people, along with individual supporters.  The two clubs were handing out free bright yellow “I Support Bike Fort Worth” shirts, resulting in a sea of yellow in council chambers.

The group ride was a great success despite the cold, and really put out a great showing of support for the plan.  Thanks again to Bike Friendly Fort Worth for putting it together  - we look forward to plenty more BFFW events.

Take a look through our gallery at our photos from the ride and of the event at City Hall.