I was able to catch the last hour or so of this year’s Bike Swap down in Ft. Worth. Here are some things I saw.
In the course of me walking around, I somehow missed our local Querencia guys three or four times. Sorry Neal, Nate & co. – I’ll catch ya’ll next time.
Good to see our Ft. Worth compatriots doing well. They were promoting some fun Night Ride activities and raising funds to put up a Fixtation in town. I can wholly get behind that. This fine gentleman to the left sold me an excellent pair of Dallas-made Rozik commuter shorts. Speaking of, my purchases for the day:
I additionally got the fine chance of chatting with Julia McCleeary, one of Ft. Worth’s excellent Senior Transportation Planners.
She and her group extolled upon me the great progress they’ve made as of late, but with still that twinge of fight in her/them to progress even more and not sit idle and complacent. And really, one does not have to go far to read about how Ft. Worth is doing. She did mention her excitement over Denton going after reverse-angled parking however!
It was not until my drive home though that it fully hit me how far ahead Ft. Worth is compared to the rest of the metroplex. Protected 5-6′ bike lanes are practically everywhere, even in areas that might normally be forgotten or considered “less than notable”. At intersections, a lot of bike lanes would have protected striping to the center area in between cars, allowing for easily visible go-aheads on green. Where there is not a lane, there are sharrows – even on heavily trafficked 30MPH+ roadways. Around Sundance Square, bikes are marked and signed to join in on the bus lanes, then widening their purview to 12′ lanes.
I know it may have been said before, but Ft. Worth is literally miles ahead of everyone else in this regard, especially Denton.
Time to step it up, folks.
- Christopher
