League of American Bicyclists Presents Richardson With Our Bronze BFC Certification
It was one thing to be honored with becoming the 5th city in Texas, and the first city in north Texas, to be recognized as a Bike Friendly Community. It was even better to actually have a League of American Bicyclists Board Member present us our certification, in person.
Gail Spann, one of the most active and influential board members of the League, also happens to live in north Texas. Instead of sending a League staff member from Washington D.C., Gail came out to personally congratulate Richardson residents and the Richardson City Council for a very difficult accomplishment. We are privileged to to get such a personal visit to welcome us into a growing community of exceptional bike friendly cities.
There is now a sign that marks our designation, that is installed in front the west entrance to City Hall. I would love to see these pop up at every road leading into the city.
Richardson Texas Gets Recognized As A Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community
Today, the League of American Bicyclists recognized Richardson, Texas with a Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community (BFCSM) award, joining 350 visionary communities from across the country.
With the announcement of 42 new and renewing BFCs today, Richardson joins a leading group of communities, in all 50 states, that are transforming our neighborhoods.
“We applaud this new round of communities for investing in a more sustainable future for the country and a healthier future for their residents and beyond,” said Andy Clarke, President of the League of American Bicyclists. “The growing number of leaders taking up bicycling as a way of solving many complex community problems is encouraging. We look forward to continuing to work with these communities as we move closer to our mission of creating a bicycle-friendly America for everyone.”
The BFC program is revolutionizing the way communities evaluate their quality of life, sustainability and transportation networks, while allowing them to benchmark their progress toward improving their bicycle-friendliness. With this impressive round, there are now 350 BFCs in all 50 states. The Bronze BFC award recognizes Richardson’s commitment to improving conditions for bicycling through investment in bicycling promotion, education programs, infrastructure and pro-bicycling policies.
This is a big deal in north Texas. Even though many cities in the area – including Fort Worth, Plano and Frisco – have received an Honorable Mention, Richardson is the first north Texas city to be recognized as a Bike Friendly Community. With it’s many bike lanes, growing trail network and interconnecting neighborhoods, this is a well deserved recognition.
There were many other variables involved in earning this status, including a great city management team – encouraged by a city council with a vision to create a great city. Richardson is also growing a strong bike community – supported by local and regional advocates like Bike Friendly Richardson and BikeDFW.
Richardson is just getting started. They’re hoping that Bronze is just a stepping stone to an even better, more robust bike community. They also hope to see that the many great efforts of their neighboring cities get recognized by the League as well.
We hope that this recognition becomes a way to motivate other north Texas cities to work harder to become bike friendly as well. Let’s keep this momentum going.
You can find the latest list on the League of American Bicyclists site or click here.
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Richardson City Staff Presents Bike Plan To City Council
On Monday, April 20, 2015 Richardson City Staff presented their Bike Plan to Richardson City Council. The presentation was a combination recap of what they’ve done, as well as their next steps.
It was nice to see how important bicycling is to our city officials and how they continue to see the value of what it brings to our community. It was also nice to see that our little grassroots, advocacy group has been recognized—not only for what we’ve done, but also as a partner moving forward.
You can catch the presentation, online. Click the link below and go to Item D in the list:
http://richardsontx.swagit.com/play/04202015-1034
The video shows Michael Spicer, Director of Development Services and Lori Smeby, Director of Parks and Recreation. Dave Carter, Asst. Director of Development Services, Transportation and Traffic – who helped put it together – was there as well.
The were lots of people who were engaged in the conversation, but we really appreciate our City Council’s positive reception of the Bike Plan and their enthusiastic support of cycling in Richardson. Thank you Laura Gibbs Maczka, Bob Townsend, Mark Solomon, Scott Dunn, Kendal Hartley, Paul Voelker and Steve Mitchell.
This is a great opportunity to have a voice for all people who ride bikes. We should work to build our community as a diverse group with a broad perspective. If you have any friends or neighbors who are interested but concerned about cycling, please invite them to join our Facebook page, engage our City and be part of the conversation.
This is an exciting time to live in our city and we look forward to the next steps.
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ATTENTION: MONDAY IS A BIG DAY FOR RICHARDSON CYCLISTS!
There are two big bike events happening on Monday, June 2. Please try to attend either one, or both.
The first is the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony of the new Central Trail extension in Richardson. It’s a much needed extension of an existing trail, providing some great connections between our local DART rail train stations and neighborhoods. The City of Richardson and Dallas County are hosting a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open the trail on June 2.
Here are the details:
Date: Monday, June 2. 2014
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Spring Valley DART Station/Central Trail – Spring Valley Road at Lingco Drive
The next is the Bike Friendly Richardson, Bike Parking Initiative presentation to the Richardson City Council, that evening.
We were asked by City Council member, Scott Dunn, to present information about creating a functional and comprehensive bike parking plan that would benefit, not only cyclists, but local business owners as well as the city. Our new Bike Parking Initiative’s lead, Mark Adams, will present a brief introduction to a bigger plan that will, hopefully, pave the way to a system of well designed and well placed bike racks that will encourage more cycling around town.
Date: Monday, June 2. 2014
Time: 6:00 p.m. – During the City Council Work Session
Location: Richardson City Hall – 411 W Arapaho Rd, Richardson, TX 75083
WE NEED TO SHOW OUR SUPPORT FOR THESE EVENTS! Let’s try to get as many cyclists as possible to the ceremony and council meeting, and show our appreciation and support.
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Bike Parking Workshop – WE NEED YOUR INPUT
Because of some of the success cyclists are getting with local businesses to get bike parking, we are getting some attention from the Richardson City Council. Currently, we are working on a proposal to promote more bike parking throughout Richardson and we would love to get your input.
If you are free this Friday evening, please stop by and let us know what you think about bike parking around town, where you think we need it, where businesses would benefit and how the city can help facilitate this.
Date: Friday, May 30
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: Freebirds – 238 W Campbell Rd, Richardson, TX 75080
We hope to see you there.
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Central Trail Nearing Completion
According to last week’s city newsletter “Week In Review”, the Central Trail extension is nearing completion:
The expansion of the Central Trail is about 90 percent complete, and the City plans to celebrate its grand opening with a ribbon cutting June 2. The 1.9-mile southern expansion connects the 10-foot wide multiuse trail from the Arapaho Road DART Station to Richardson’s southern city limit. A future connection in the City of Dallas is expected to eventually tie it into the White Rock Creek Trail. The $4.5 million project is funded through Dallas County, $1.4 million from the City of Richardson’s 2010 Bond Program and Regional Tollway Revenue funds.
The City is also working to expand the Central Trail half a mile to the north to Richardson’s northern city limit. The existing trail ends at Renner Road, but the expansion will tie in to the CityLine development and eventually connect to the Plano trail system. The $1.8 million northern expansion is funded through Regional Tollway Revenue and the City’s Tax Increment Finance Zone #2. It is expected to be complete in the summer of 2015 and will allow the trail to run from city limit to city limit.
Watch a City Council work session presentation about progress on the Central Trail at bit.ly/1lDwyxu.
We can’t wait to ride this. It’ll be fantastic once cyclists are able to ride from the north end of town, eventually to the White Rock Creek Trail and into Dallas.
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Come Down For The Owens Trail Celebration
Oncor is just about finished with the Owens Trail beautification project and would like to invite you to their celebration.
From Oncor:
We are looking to get the word out about the celebration to be held on Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to noon that marks the end of the Owens Trail beautification project. There will be free, springtime family-friendly activities centered around the trail and the Oncor Texas Trails project.
As part of the promotion next week, we will be posting an invitation on our newsroom website, TheWire.Oncor.com, and similar messages to our social media networks.
We would love for all neighbors and members of the community to come out and join us!
We are grateful that Oncor has chosen on of our trails as the first in this beautification project, and we hope to see it become available on more of their right-of-ways.
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More Progress On Central Trail South
This section is heading south to Spring Valley Station.
We’ve been following the progress on the Central Trail South (what we are calling the DART Trail section between Arapaho Road and 635 LBJ) and we are seeing some great progress. The last time we checked, the biggest barrier – which was building the trail over some creeks and drainage systems (between Belt Line Road and Spring Valley Road) – was requiring some major, time consuming construction.
From our latest inspection over the past weekend, we discovered that most of that construction is complete. All that remains, of the full trail extension, are just a few small pockets of missing trail, as well as the final, finishing touches. We’re hoping these are finished soon.
This section is covering the new drainage systems.
We’ve also discovered a new addition to the Central Trail south – trail construction NORTH of Arapaho. You may remember us pointing out the ‘gap’ in the original plans for the trail extension, back in 2010. We were concerned that the connection to the south extension was nothing more than a narrow sidewalk. We are glad that this issue was addressed and they are now continuing the wider trail from Arapaho Road, all the way to Arapaho Station. We would love to see that gap eventually connect to the north part of the Central Trail.
This is the new section north of Arapaho Road.
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Richardson Gets Safe Routes To School
A few years back, Ricahardson was awarded federal funding through a Safe Routes to School grant from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for two schools in Richardson: Richland Elementary and Yale Elementary.
It’s finally getting implemented and is scheduled to be complete next month. According to the SRTS plan (pdf), we will be getting:
• Barrier-free curb ramps
• Sidewalks (repairs and missing links)
• School crosswalk and signage upgrades
• Bike lanes
• Bike routes (I’m not sure what they mean by this)
They are already working on the sidewalks and barrier-free curb ramps in Yale Park. It’ll also be nice to get the bike lanes, which will help calm the car traffic through the neighborhood streets, create more awareness for bicycling and encourage more people to ride.
The original information about our Safe Routes To School grant had mentioned bike racks for the schools, but they aren’t on the current proposal (pdf). That either means there wasn’t enough funds or ‘Bike routes’ listed above is a typo, and we are still getting them.
We are glad that we live in a city that works hard to get grants like this. This is a big win for Richardson and we hope to see more developments that improve safety and encourage more active transportation.
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Landscaping Improvements Are Coming To A Section Of Owens Trail
Here is some great news from this week’s Week In Review newsletter from the City of Richardson:
Council Awards Bid for Oncor Signature Trails Landscape Project
Landscaping improvements are coming to a section of Owens Trail south of Collins Boulevard as part of Oncor’s Texas Trails Program. Oncor, North Texas’ regulated electric transmission and distribution service provider, is providing $250,000 for the project, which will be maintained by the City.
The section of Owens Trail being improved winds past Oncor transmission towers and lies within Oncor’s right of way. The improvements to the Owens Trail are designed to serve as an example of how Oncor can work with community partners to create landscaped trails that do not interfere with transmission lines.
Construction is expected to begin this month and wrap up in April.
On a personal note, this is good news for me. It happens to be in my neighborhood and on one of my usual routes. I can’t wait to see the completed improvements.
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Bike Friendly Richardson 
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