Our friends at Trinity Bicycles, the new bike shop in South Main Village in the Near Southside, have written their own letter of support for the modern streetcar project and have posted it on their site.  Here it is:

As you all know, one of our biggest missions here at Trinity Bicycles is increasing the viable transportation options for our neighbors here in Fort Worth. Obviously, we think bikes should play a big role in Fort Worth’s transportation future.

We’re not solely pro-bike, though. We’ve been around long enough to know that all alternative (read: non-car) transportation options tend to fare better when they are interconnected, plentiful, and even somewhat redundant.

That’s why we want to ask everyone who believes that our city needs more and varied transportation alternatives to show up at tomorrow’s (ed. – That would be tonight’s meeting now) Fort Worth City Council meeting at 7 p.m. to show your support for the City’s modern streetcar plan.

The vote to hire transportation super-planners HDR (they worked on Portland’s system) was supposed to happen 2 weeks ago, but it was postponed until tomorrow evening, and there was some rumbling that the political winds may have been shifting and the plan might not get funded.

Word today is that the vote is likely to be successful after all, but it is not something we as citizens should leave to chance. We need to make it clear to our elected officials that their constituents want real choices on how they move about their city. Please come help us fill the council chambers with streetcar supporters, and thereby help the Mayor and City Council feel good about their decision to vote to fund the planning phase of the streetcar project. And of course, having a crowd visibly supportive of a Streetcar system might come in handy just in case any votes are wavering tomorrow night.

We know it must seem scary for a city council member to vote to spend a large amount of money on a project that will take years to come to fruition. But the truth is, as a city, we just can’t afford not to take this step. We are being left behind every day we do not move forward with bringing our transportation system into the 21st century.

How many young, creative, active people do you know who have moved to a “cooler” city (Austin and Portland come to mind) to pursue careers? I know too many, all of whom said they “loved Fort Worth, but….”

Even our neighbors to the East in Dallas have seen how transit options can revitalize neighborhoods. Just look at what’s happening in Oak Cliff, Knox Henderson, or just about anywhere along the light rail lines they have built.

And right here in Fort Worth, I can tell you from personal experience, just the very promise of a Streetcar system has improved the economy. Trinity Bicycles chose to relocate from Irving, TX, to its location at 207 S. Main in part because it was on a proposed streetcar line. Now the final space in a long-empty historic building is filled, and not just with any business– a retail business that will be putting sales tax into the City coffers.

If we chose a location based on a system that hasn’t even been started yet, imagine how many more businesses will move into town if the system actually gets built…

With the City Council voting tonight on hiring HDR to proceed with the streetcar project, we’ve gotten ahold of a couple of other letters of support for the project from various places in the city.  Here’s one from citizen Brian Kieta.

Dear Esteemed Leaders of Our Fair City,

PLEASE…do not stunt the growth of this ever-growing, remarkable city of ours, by voting against the proposed streetcar system.  If we truly desire for our great city to be unapologetically added to the list of “world-class” cities, we MUST have an efficient and pleasing public transportation system (and a system of bus public transport certainly does NOT count toward our inclusion on such a list).   Let me bring to light the following cities which truly are a pleasure to live in and visit, mostly due to their outstanding public transit: Paris, New York, San Francisco, Boston, London, Montreal, Chicago, Moscow…

Granted, the population of these cities is much more than Fort Worth, but simply take a Fort Worth-sized slice of any of these great metropolis’ and realize that its’ outstanding public transportation is the veins through which the life of the city flows.  Not only in terms of infrastructure and municipal function, but in how much greater the quality of life is for cities that flow well.  The fantastic sense of city unity and community exists mostly because of these well-planned, easy to use systems.

I think Fort Worth is aching for a life-giving opportunity that a modern, well-planned and executed streetcar system would bring.  Many Fort Worth residents think that all of their commuting life is meant to be spent in the confines of the automobile and have never had the chance to experience what life is like lived in the midst of, and supported by, a fun to use public transportation system.

I have heard that there are other competing interests for the funds necessary to move this vision forward, and that a crucial time of decision is upon us (you).  Let me urge you to not let your politics get in the way of doing the right thing: vote in support of the streetcar system.  You and I both know that a stellar public transportation system would literally transform this city into a place that both young and old would absolutely love to live in, and hate to leave.  Having traveled all across the globe, I have personally witnessed and heard testimony after testimony of how good public transportation literally changes how people live.  It affects the daily decisions of how people live their lives.  Suddenly, you realize that people living together, getting to know one another and prospering together is really what great public transportation is all about.  Economic growth and city pride is really just a pleasant (and assured) by-product. It’s the people that make up a city – and public transit is all about that human element.

I am not considered to be a qualified expert on the subject of public transportation – but I do know people, and when excellence is brought forth in an effort to enrich our lives, we the people, respond positively every time.  In my humble opinion, this is a decision that can’t fully be made on numbers, facts and studies alone; there hasto be some element of gut feeling put toward this decision. Just as a football coach has to make a hard decision at a crucial point in the game, the fear of making a bad decision can’t paralyze you from actually making one that you feel in your heart, is the right one to make. It still comes down to the coach making the final call with all the information he’s been given, and it must be made with confidence.

Thanks for all the time and effort you put into making Fort Worth a great place to live.  It really is a hidden gem, and mostly because of the work done by you and your colleagues to make that a sentiment a reality.

Sincerely,

Brian Kieta
Fort Worth Citizen
1991 – present

We have learned that due in no small part to the efforts of streetcar supporters who called in and e-mailed from our earlier posts on the subject that the City Council looks to have changed its stance and is now expected to vote tomorrow night to hire HDR to conduct the full streetcar design study.

Should this come to pass as we are expecting, it is a major victory for the streetcar project and ensures that it will be moving ahead.  It’s not a commitment to build it, so don’t think this process is over.  It is, however, a huge step forward – HDR will be able to put together a detailed design & engineering plan showing us exactly what needs to be built, how to run it, and how it can be paid for.

We would like to thank all of you out there for calling and writing to the Fort Worth City Council on this – we have been told in no uncertain terms that our efforts were a major part of this.  Note that we are still calling for as many of you as possible to attend the City Council meeting tomorrow night at 7:00 PM at Fort Worth City Hall – it just looks like we’ll be in for a celebration (similar to the standing ovation that accompanied the Bike Fort Worth vote) rather than a fight.  We’d still like to see a strong showing of support in front of the council.  And yes, there will still be free t-shirts, available outside council chambers, to wear in to show your support for the project.

This is another step forward for real transportation choice in urban Fort Worth, and for the economic and livability benefits of great transit in this city.  Thank you all for your help.

Just a friendly reminder – supporters of the streetcar project need to be e-mailing/calling *all* of the council members and the mayor, not just the one from your own district.  It’s vitally important to this effort for them to all hear the voice of the citizens of Fort Worth who want transportation choice, and who want them to vote to hire HDR for the design work at the meeting this Tuesday.  And of course, we hope as many of you as possible will make time to attend said council meeting at 7:00 PM.  We understand that t-shirts have been designed and are being printed for supporters to wear.

Mayor – Mike Moncrief – 817-392-6118 – mike.moncrief@fortworthgov.org
Mayor Pro Tem – Danny Scarth – 817-392-6187 –District4@fortworthgov.org
Sal Espino –  817-392-8802 – District2@fortworthgov.org
Zim Zimmerman – 817-392-8803 - District3@fortworthgov.org
Frank Moss – 817-392-8805 – District5@fortworthgov.org
Jungus Jordan – 817-392-8806 – District6@fortworthgov.org
Carter Burdette – 817-392-8807 – District7@fortworthgov.org
Kathleen Hicks – 817-392-8808 – District8@fortworthgov.org
Joel Burns – 817-392-8809 – District9@fortworthgov.org

We’ve been sent this survey conducted by the ETC Institute for the City of Fort Worth last year that details how supportive Fort Worth residents would be of various projects.  Particularly noteworthy is the streetcar project, which received the third-highest support overall from the survey, and the highest “very supportive” ranking of any project.  Had the project been listed as a “central city streetcar” rather than just Downtown, it’s certainly possible it would have been ranked even higher.

We found it interesting and thought we’d share, as it doesn’t seem to have gotten much coverage.

Another letter of support for the modern streetcar project has come to us in advance of the City Council meeting on April 6th – this one is from the Fairmount Neighborhood Association in the Near Southside.  With the permission of FNA President Robert Wedding and FNS President Emerita Patti Randle, here it is:

March 30, 2010

Mayor Mike Moncrief
Members of the City Council
City of Fort Worth
1000 Throckmorton Street
Fort Worth, TX 76102

Dear Mayor Moncrief and City Council Members,

On behalf of the Fairmount Neighborhood Association, we are writing to ask you and the entire City Council to continue to support the proposed Modern Streetcar System.

After your travels in 2008 to Dallas, Seattle and Portland, your positive assessment of their successful streetcar systems was encouraging to us.  We saw then, and believe today, that such a system would have a positive impact on our air quality, reduce the stress on our already overburdened infrastructure, and add to our quality of life.

We love Fort Worth and we want it to be recognized as a world-class city.  We believe that a usable, sustainable public transportation system is a major component of that vision, and the streetcar system would be an important link in that transportation system.

It is our understanding that funds are available for the first phase, an engineering feasibility study.  We implore you to stand firm on this issue, to respect and protect the intent of these funds, and to move forward with what, in the future, will surely be called one of the greatest achievements of our grand City.

We thank you all for your leadership and commitment to our City, and we hope that you will continue to support the modern streetcar system.

Robert Wedding
President

Patti Randle
President Emerita

Fairmount Neighborhood Association

Cc:  Fairmount Neighborhood Association Members
Dale Fisseler, City Manager
Fernando Costa, Assistant City Manager

After today’s buzz about the streetcar project, we received the following letter of support for the project from Fran McCarthy, Chair of the city’s Central City Redevelopment Committee.  With Fran’s permission, we are publishing his letter below.

CENTRAL CITY REDEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Fort Worth, Texas

March 28, 2010

Mayor Mike Moncrief
City of Fort Worth
1000 Throckmorton Street
Fort Worth, Texas 76107

Subject:  Modern Streetcars for Fort Worth, Texas

Dear Mike:

On behalf of your Central City Redevelopment Committee, I urge you and the City Council to approve  M&C-24103, Authorize the Execution of a Professional Services Agreement with HDR Engineering, Inc., in the Amount of $1,880,800.00 for the Modern Streetcar Planning and Design Project at your April 6 City Council meeting.

At several recent events, you have spoken eloquently about the need to improve our mobility and air quality, to expand our tax base, to reinvest in our central city, and to promote more sustainable forms of development.  I have joined many other Fort Worth citizens in applauding your remarks at the Tracks to the Future conference, at your State of the City address, and at the Vision North Texas regional summit, in which you have observed wisely that Fort Worth must invest now in the development of rail transportation — including proposed improvements to Tower 55, commuter rail, and a modern streetcar system that connects our central-city growth centers and urban villages.

You have provided exceptional leadership:
by heading our 2008 fact-finding trips to Dallas and the Pacific Northwest,
by raising public awareness about the need for a modern streetcar system,
by appointing a Modern Streetcar Task Force,
and by securing federal funds from the Regional Transportation Council for a definitive study of the modern streetcar system.

In September of last year, the City Council formally accepted those funds and authorized corresponding agreements with the Texas Department of Transportation and the Fort Worth Transportation Authority.  Accordingly, the time has come to authorize a contract with our preferred consultant for the modern streetcar study, which will provide the City Council with all of the information that you and Council need to make sound decisions about the Modern Streetcar project.

We understand that questions have arisen about whether the modern streetcar project is competing for limited resources with the Tower 55 project and the Southwest-to-Northeast commuter rail project.  The correct answer is “No”!  In fact, all three projects are closely interrelated, all three are vitally important to our central city, and all three deserve the City Council’s continued support. Fort Worth has never shied always from finding ways to fund multiple important projects even in tough economic times and we can once again.

Furthermore, we understand that questions have arisen about whether authorization of the HDR contract will obligate the City to expend funds on the design of any particular alignments.  Again, the correct answer is “No”!  In fact, your incredible staff has negotiated an excellent contract such that the City would actually expend about $100,000.00 which is less than half of the allocated funds on phases 1 and 2, and which will provide the determination of feasible and desirable alignments, before seeking the City Council’s authorization to proceed into preliminary engineering as a potential phase 3 and spending the second $100.000.00.

Mike, this is a small amount of money considering the potential long term benefit of a Streetcar system as part of an integrated transportation system. On the other side of the argument $100,000.00 is a small amount of money to determine that a different transportation system should be developed that answers the future transportation needs of Fort Worth.

In view of the extensive benefits and limited costs associated with the modern streetcar study, we urge you to stay the course and authorize the HDR contract without further delay.

Mike, let us know how we can assist you towards that end.

Sincerely,

Fran McCarthy
Chair
Central City Redevelopment Committee

Cc: Members of the Fort Worth City Council
Members of the Central City Committee

At the last City Council meeting, the council was supposed to vote to finally hire on HDR, Inc. (the nation’s preeminent transit planners, whose streetcar resume stretches across dozens of projects in development and whose streetcar chief, Charlie Hales, had a hand in Portland, Oregon’s wildly successful project) to commence a full-up study of the Fort Worth modern streetcar project.  HDR would conduct a multi-phase design study that would answer all the remaining questions about the project:  an exact alignment, operational details, construction and operation costs, economic and development impacts (to show how much development could accompany the streetcar line), etc. etc. etc.  This final study would give the city all the information it needed to move forward with the project, or not, if it was determined to not be feasible.

We reported back in November that the city had selected a firm to handle the design duties – that firm was HDR.  Yet HDR has not been officially hired on.  The reasons why are becoming clear:  certain councilmembers, wealthy individuals, and other influential parties are looking to sink the project before the study is even underway, for reasons of both petty political bickering and to help two of the wealthiest corporations in the United States.

HDR is to be hired using approximately $1.8 million dollars.  Almost all of that money comes from the North Central Texas Council of Governments, which granted Fort Worth this money specifically to hire a consultant for this study.  This money is already here, and waiting to be used.  HDR knows they’re the firm, and are waiting for the green light.

At the last council meeting, when the vote to hire HDR came up, it got delayed until April 6th.  This latest in a string of delays has caused strong frustration within the city, within the business and development communities, and within the citizens who are eager for progress on the streetcar project.  It now appears to us that this delay is due to a variety of forces attempting to kill the project before the study is even underway.

There appears to be an effort underway now to stop the study from happening, and to raid the NCTCOG grant money and turn it over to at-grade improvements for the infamous Tower 55 project.  Put another way, various influential bodies and council members would like to take the streetcar study money and instead turn it over to helping BNSF and Union Pacific, the two railroad companies impacted by the Tower 55 situation.  (This is not for anything related to the Tower 55 trenches being discussed – this is for at-grade improvements to the existing north-south alignment.)

In addition, we hear talk of not wanting the streetcar to “compete” with other transit projects, as well as tons of misinformation about the streetcar project causing higher taxes or being paid for by raiding road repair funds, etc. – none of which are true.

This vote is to spend money the city has already been granted to hire HDR to conduct the right and proper study that needs to be done for the streetcar project.  It doesn’t commit the city to building anything.  Whether we decide in the end to build the streetcar or not, this study needs to be done.  It will answer every question the council could have about the project, and probably then some.  We feel that it would be incredibly irresponsible and careless to kill the study before the city has all the facts.  The council shouldn’t say “no” before they know.

The decision to further delay the vote to hire HDR, Inc. to conduct the full design study – not even a vote to actually build the thing, just a vote to do the right and proper study that needs to be done, whatever the eventual outcome – showcases a staggering lack of leadership and forward-thinking on the part of this city government.  After years of positive progress, much productive discussion, years of planning by talented individuals within our own committees, and a strong showing of support from the city government in a variety of venues (such as the Pacific Northwest fact-finding trip and the Tracks to the Future conference), to see that this Council seems to be back-pedaling under the cloud of incorrect information to raid the study grant to benefit two of the wealthiest corporations in America is extremely disappointing.

We have seen what effective multi-modal transit can do for a city, not only in terms of mobility but also in terms of development, livability, and the creation of truly remarkable places.  We have seen that these sorts of places – higher density, with a variety of choices in living arrangement, transportation, employment, and recreation – foster some remarkable examples of creativity, prosperity, and life.

We have the opportunity, with this modern streetcar project, to help create those sorts of places in Fort Worth.  It is clear that streetcars can attract far more riders than buses are capable of (due to an assortment of factors – comfort, smooth operation, ease of use, etc.).  In addition, streetcars provide that “last couple of miles” connection from our commuter rail projects, leading to higher ridership overall.  Getting more people on our transit systems means less congestion, better air quality, less dependence on increasingly unreliable supplies of fossil fuels, and the creation of far more successful and livable urban neighborhoods.  Fort Worth’s current transit offerings are not sufficient if we are to truly create the city that we have been talking about.  For example, Mayor Moncrief’s own words in the State of the City address, words he now seemed poised to flip-flop on:

Commuter Rail, street cars, and other alternative modes of transportation also remain a priority for me and this City Council. Unfortunately, Fort Worth and other major metropolitan areas are finding out the hard way what a mistake it was to design and build cities around automobiles years ago. Friends, we cannot continue to focus solely on building more roads for more vehicles. That’s counter productive at best.  Business as usual is dead!  North Texas requires a transportation overhaul. No more band-aides, no more patches—a complete overhaul!

If business as usual is truly dead, we must act to fully examine our transportation alternatives.  Further delays, or an outright rejection, of the proposal to hire HDR to conduct our full streetcar study would be a grave mistake.  To then raid that fund to benefit BNSF and UP would be an outrage.

Other cities obviously get it.  Even Dallas is pulling further and further ahead of us in this regard, building off their ongoing DART light rail success with their own modern streetcar project – which defeated our own for TIGER funding at least in part due to the clear lack of leadership on the part of the Fort Worth city government and a muddled message coming from City Hall, in addition to the decision to submit only the downtown circulator without the Near Southside or Cultural District lines.  Former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, at the Tracks to the Future conference, spoke extensively of this need for strong leadership and a clear message.

These cities – cities like Dallas, and Portland, and Seattle, and Charlotte, and more – are more fully serving their citizens by creating real transportation choice.  If Fort Worth continues to drop the ball on projects like the streetcar, we will lose out.  These cities are competing with us for the jobs and vitality of the future, and we know that ever-increasing numbers of young creatives and professionals no longer wish to have the same suburban/car-dominated life that their parents and grandparents had.  They want real choice, in living arrangement and transportation (and make no mistake, these two things are deeply linked – effective transit helps build effective mixed-use living arrangements, and vice versa).  They will go where they can get these things, and if they can’t get them here, we’ll fall behind.  If Fort Worth wants to compete on the global stage, we have to start getting serious about this sort of thing.  It is time Fort Worth stopped wishing to remain a “small town” forever and started acting like the proud, vibrant, major American city it is.

Our current transit infrastructure (especially The T’s woefully poor bus projects) are not enough to compete on the national and international stage.

We must get serious, and we must give this study its due as we do with every other major decision.  This city has the opportunity to work with the finest transit minds in the United States to come up with solutions that work for us.  This is perhaps one of the most important proposals to come before the City Council, ever – it deserves the same level of attention as our other major decisions.  This is not a vote to fund the entire system – it is a vote to make a relatively miniscule investment to find out all the facts we need before we make further decisions to proceed.  There are valid concerns and questions about the streetcar project, but this City Council is behaving as though they don’t even want to answer them.  The City Council wishes instead to bury its head in the sand and pretend that business as usual is, in fact, healthy and productive – when the evidence of the last several years shows that to be untrue.  And it further wants to hand over the NCTCOG money to benefit two corporations for whom $1.8 million is chump change.  Don’t be surprised, if this happens, that NCTCOG will be extremely reluctant to work with the city in the future as well as it has (and we wouldn’t be surprised, if we wind up cutting HDR loose after stringing them along, that Fort Worth’s reputation with transit planners and the Feds will be quite negatively impacted as well).

It bears repeating:  don’t say “no” before we know.  Whatever your stance on the streetcar project, it deserves full consideration as any other major decision does.  There are questions that need answering and this is how we answer them, and the planners and money are already here and ready to go.

We see a growing resentment toward this City Council and a growing feeling that the City Council is making a last-minute, nonsensical course reversal after the years of planning, the consultant selection, and the vote to fund the study, not to mention this same City Council’s public expressions of support for this project.  It seems like a dramatic failure of leadership, and a mess of petty political bickering.  The fact that it happens behind closed doors in Fort Worth, rather than out in the open as in Dallas, doesn’t change the fact that it is terribly unfortunate and shameful.

We love Fort Worth.  We also realize that it is not perfect, and that we are desperately behind in terms of transit.  We know that people within City Hall know this to be true as well.  If we drop the ball on this before even getting all the facts, it will be a black mark on our legacy.

We encourage all our readers to contact the City Council and express your concern and frustration with the delays and petty politics, and express your support for getting the study done with HDR.  Here are their contact numbers and e-mail addresses:

Mayor – Mike Moncrief – 817-392-6118 – mike.moncrief@fortworthgov.org
Mayor Pro Tem – District 4 – Danny Scarth – 817-392-6187 – District4@fortworthgov.org
District 2 – Sal Espino –  817-392-8802 – District2@fortworthgov.org
District 3 – Zim Zimmerman – 817-392-8803 - District3@fortworthgov.org
District 5 – Frank Moss – 817-392-8805 – District5@fortworthgov.org
District 6 – Jungus Jordan – 817-392-8806 – District6@fortworthgov.org
District 7 – Carter Burdette – 817-392-8807 – District7@fortworthgov.org
District 8 – Kathleen Hicks – 817-392-8808 – District8@fortworthgov.org
District 9 – Joel Burns – 817-392-8809 – District9@fortworthgov.org

In addition, we are encouraging as many of our readers as possible to attend the City Council meeting on Tuesday, April 6th, at 7:00 PM, to show your support for the streetcar project.  We are working with some of our associates to have T-shirts available at the meeting, as was done with the Bike Fort Worth plan.  We’ll have more information this week, but for now, we hope you will try to be at the council meeting on the 6th to help support the project – and that you’ll tell your friends to help as well.  We know the streetcar support is out there (in fact, we have numbers – more on that later), and now it’s time to tell your city representatives that we don’t want any more delays, or petty politics.

We are the new Fort Worth.  We have the chance to move this city boldly into the future, just as our forefathers did when they brought the railroad to Fort Worth, just as Amon Carter did decades ago, and just as countless other great Fort Worthians have done since the days when this city was just an Army outpost on a bluff at the convergence of the West and Clear forks of the Trinity River.  Make your voice heard.

EDIT:  Had to add these comments from our friend at Walkable Dallas-Fort Worth:

Two key components. This is about real choice (which I harp on constantly) and economic development. Streetcars are what unlocked and created the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to downtowns, and crazy as it sounds, they are what will revitalize those same areas which have been decimated by speculation, zoning, and car-oriented policies and design.

EDIT:  Here’s a link to a Fort Worth Weekly story by Dan McGraw about why we missed out on the TIGER grant. Of particular note is that our “downtown circulator” submission didn’t win because it didn’t go anywhere.  Dallas was going to get laughed out of the US DOT offices as well with their original downtown-only plan.  It was the better downtown-to-Oak Cliff plan that got them the money.  That’s why we need to be focusing on a downtown-to-Near Southside or downtown-to-Cultural District starter plan.

EDIT:  Here’s a letter of support from Fran McCarthy, chair of the Central City Redevelopment Committee.

Google has taken the wraps off a new beta feature on Google Maps:  bike route support.  The feature was turned on as the National Bike Summit in Washington, D. C. got underway this week.  Google has added the bike route system to the maps of 150 cities thus far, and Fort Worth is one of them.

In Google Maps, you can use the “More” button at the upper right of the map to turn on the new “Bicycling” layer.  As seen in the screenshot above, this adds green routes for bike route streets, such as these in the Near Southside.

Off-street trails are also highlighted in green.

You can also get bicycling directions.  Here, we gave it a simple test – in the Near Southside, from Magnolia & Henderson to Pennsylvania & Jennings.  Google Maps correctly used the bike lanes on Magnolia and the sharrow route on Jennings to take us there – Jennings is the main north-south bike route for the Near Southside between Magnolia and Downtown.

As long as there’s a bike route connection between your start and end, Google Maps seems to work pretty well.  Where it starts to fall apart is when there’s gaps in the bike route system – and we certainly have plenty of those in Fort Worth.  If there’s not a direct bike route connection, Google Maps starts to get a little weird.  Here, it told us to go straight down Henderson from Magnolia to get to Sundance Square – not the route we’d recommend or ride ourselves.  Henderson is not a bike-friendly street.  We’d take Magnolia down to Jennings into Downtown, meet up with Throckmorton next to the Omni Hotel, then take the bus lane on Throckmorton to 3rd.  Oddly, though Jennings is marked as a bike route all the way to Downtown, Google ignores it in this case.  Google warns that these directions are in beta, and provides a link in the yellow box on the left to submit your own suggestions or corrections.

Here’s the route Google gives for Magnolia & Henderson to 7th & Currie.  Not sure we’d recommend riding on the Summit Avenue freeway overpass for most riders.

Using one of Google’s suggested alternate routes, another problem with the current beta system becomes apparent:  not only does it not yet know what streets are good for bikes and what streets are bad (see how it recommends riding down not only University but also the Rosedale freeway-style overpass over the river), it also doesn’t seem to recognize all the access points for the Trinity Trails.

To test that last point, we tried a custom route by dragging & dropping the blue line.  We attempted to join the Trinity Trails near the Fort Worth Zoo/Rogers Road area to ride up towards the West 7th development via the trails into the park, but Google instead appeared to route us up University, into Trinity Park, onto the trails, then all the way out the opposite direction to Hulen before bringing us back down the trails into Trinity Park.

Clearly, Google’s not kidding about the “beta” part.  Of course, some of the bugginess of the current setup in Fort Worth is probably also due to our disjointed bike route plan.  In the future, as the Bike Fort Worth plan is implemented, Fort Worth will start to look a lot more like how the cities with more comprehensive bike transportation systems look in the new bike map feature, like Portland and Austin:

Beyond our own incomplete bike route network, the new Google Maps feature needs to start learning which streets are good and bad for bikes.  Undoubtedly, feedback from users will be key to making that work – so Fort Worth bicycle users, start reporting to Google when they get things wrong.  It might not be a bad idea for Google to implement some kind of street grading system to gauge a street’s bike friendliness based on a rider preference – something like an “Easy, Medium, Difficult” scale.  And of course, to create streets that are friendly to bikes in general, it’s important for cities to implement Complete Streets policies.

It’s still a big step forward to have Google implementing bike routing into Google Maps, so we’re excited about the possibilities as this feature matures.  Use it and see how it works for you.

Edit:  Added the full transcript of the Mayor’s discussion related to this topic.

Mayor Moncrief has given his State of the City address, and one of the items he discussed was the city’s transportation and planning.  The mayor stated in no uncertain terms that Fort Worth is facing severe transportation challenges, that they stem from too many years of car-first planning, and that Fort Worth can no longer be designed and built in a car-centric fashion – topics certainly familiar to Fort Worthology readers:

Commuter Rail, street cars, and other alternative modes of transportation also remain a priority for me and this City Council. Unfortunately, Fort Worth and other major metropolitan areas are finding out the hard way what a mistake it was to design and build cities around automobiles years ago. Friends, we cannot continue to focus solely on building more roads for more vehicles. That’s counter productive at best.

Business as usual is dead!

North Texas requires a transportation overhaul. No more band-aides, no more patches—a complete overhaul!

Regrettably, it’s becoming more and more obvious that we cannot depend on the state or federal government to help us in the near term. In fact, there is no guarantee of any new money to build any new roads in Texas after 2012.

Frankly, I’m tired of talking about this. This afternoon, workers at BNSF…employees at Lockheed Martin or Bell Textron…even many of you in this room will leave work and then sit…and sit…and sit in traffic. It’s a frustrating daily routine that carries a great cost once you consider the impacts to our quality of life, our environment, our air, and our ability to attract and keep new business investment.

If this is a mobility crisis—and I believe it is—then it must be treated like one!

In the spirit of the early Fort Worth pioneers who took it upon themselves to pick up shovels and extend the first rail line to our city, it’s time that we took matters in our own hands. It is clear to me that we are not going to get where we need to be by relying only on help from the feds or the state.

We are going to have to pull ourselves out of the ditch!

In the coming weeks, I will appoint an 11-member Blue Ribbon Task Force. I will charge this body with returning specific recommendations to the full City Council on how we fix or relieve pressure on Fort Worth’s aging transportation infrastructure.