Fort Worth Bike Lane Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
June 30, 2011 at 1:17 pm | Bicycles, Transit & Infrastructure | Tags: 7th Street, Bicycling, complete streets, Cultural District, Downtown, Infrastructure, Magnolia Village, Near Southside, SoDo, South Main Village, transportation
Fort Worth Bike Lane Ribbon Cutting Ceremony from Kevin Buchanan on Vimeo.
This morning, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held in downtown Fort Worth, Texas to celebrate the completion of downtown’s first bike lanes (on 10th & Texas streets), as well as the ongoing bike lane installations in the Near Southside and the 7th Street Urban Village areas. A large crowd of local bike riders and media gathered and heard speeches by City of Fort Worth Planning Director Randle Harwood, Fort Worth City Council District 9 Representative Joel Burns, and Mayor Mike Moncrief on the benefits of making Fort Worth a bike-friendly city.
After the drama and conflict of the Arlington bike plan vote at their last city council meeting, it is an interesting and stark contrast to look at some of the things that Planning Director Harwood, Councilman Burns, and Mayor Moncrief had to say about bike infrastructure in Fort Worth.
A couple of items from Mr. Harwood:
Not only are we going to give you a place to ride, but you’re going to have a place to park, because there’s 250 bike racks that look just like these ones right here.
Eventually, these bicycle facilities, both on-street and off-street, will connect the Near Southside, West 7th, and the Trinity Trails, so it’ll be easier to commute to work downtown, or to commute to downtown to have fun, and get back home.
Quotes from Joel Burns:
Modern, forward-thinking transportation options for Fort Worth – that’s what’s going to build our economy.
We all know that there’s many safety benefits of bike lanes. Bike lanes help define road space, encourage cyclists to ride in the correct direction of travel, signal to motorists that cyclists have the right of the road. Bike lanes help to better organize the flow of traffic and reduce the chances that motorists will stray into a cyclist’s path of travel.
Studies have shown that bike lanes are not only good for our health and our environment, but they’re good for the health of our economy. Some of the ways they bring benefits are tourism, more traffic to local businesses, increased property values, and healthier citizens. Neighborhoods become more desirable when traffic slows down and residents have more transportation choices. Businesses encourage shopping among loyal local customers by making getting there by bike more appealing. Individuals benefit from increased levels of fitness and health that result in real cost savings, and employers have healthier employees that miss fewer days of work.
A modest shift from driving to riding has considerable impacts on savings on health, road construction, congestion, and environmental remediation…the United States and internationally both demonstrate that this shift is possible, but it’s unlikely without some sort of investment in bicycle facilities to provide riders with an appealing, safe alternative choice.
People need to understand that bikes are good for business. Just look at Magnolia – many of you have ridden the bike lanes up and down Magnolia…Avoca Coffee opened its doors not long ago. After that, they began converting driveways once used for cars into additional bike parking. I think that’s a great sign. The same kind of thing that we’re seeing in the Southside of town can also happen in Downtown. More bicycle lanes means more cyclists downtown, and that makes it a destination for a new and growing audience. More bikes means fewer issues with parking, mobility, accessibility, and convenience.
And a few from Mayor Moncrief:
We’re excited – today is just one more day of Fort Worth moving forward. Not backward, but forward – to try and provide alternative transportation to those who live here, to those who come to visit, and to those future generations.
I can’t think of a better example of how to save dollars and at the same time improving your health, improving our ability to move people from Point A to Point B, getting to and from your destination safely and securely, and being protected – having the room to enjoy this alternative mode of transportation.
I wanted to share with you a couple of earlier comments. I was getting to visit with some of you earlier this morning. I was talking, first of all, to some of the folks from Rahr Brewery. I didn’t realize that the entire employee base at Rahr Brewery all ride their bikes to and from work. Did y’all know that? That’s pretty cool!…I do also want to share with you that I was talking with a gentleman, he said that because of being able to ride his bike to and from work, he has only gone through four tanks of gas in his Tahoe for the entire year. I said “I go through that much in a week!” It is that kind of change in attitude, that kind of understanding of the benefits that bicycling brings.
I think this staff with their recommendation of these bike lanes to this council, the unanimous support of this council for that recommendation, speaks volumes. It says we do care about providing safety for you, for those who live here. It says we do care about providing for that next generation an alternative to cars and trucks to be able to get around. We hope that you use these lanes early and often.