Sure, Dallas has an unfunded pension obligation of about $4 billion that, in the short term, will lead to cost-cutting measures, forcing some taxpaying citizens to drag their trash bins to their front curbs, and that could, in the long term, bankrupt the entire city. But what about sweeping the protected bike lanes?
It’s tricky to figure out how many miles of proper protected bike lanes Dallas has. I tried to ask Jessica Scott, the bicycle mobility manager for Dallas, but the city’s Communications & Customer Experience department intervened and wouldn’t let Scott talk to me, thereby simultaneously impeding communication and spoiling this customer’s experience. A win-win for city bureaucracy. When I asked the intervening communications manager, Ariel Wallace, whether the city had only 5 miles of protected lanes and how often they are swept, she replied in an email, ignoring the question about mileage and instead defining what a protected bike lane is (lanes separated from traffic by concrete curbs, flex posts, or black rubber curbs) and saying they are swept every month—before admitting that the city’s one special miniature bike-lane-sweeping vehicle breaks down frequently, creating “challenges with meeting this schedule.”
There you have it. The city of Dallas hasn’t been sweeping its bike lanes.
The picture you see above was taken in a bike lane on the Commerce Street bridge. On an August afternoon, its entire length sparkled with broken glass and other debris. Having done long group rides every weekend this summer on various routes between East Dallas and Oak Cliff (and points beyond), I can report that cyclists don’t dare ride in the city’s protected bike lanes. Punctured tires don’t produce a good customer experience. This could be one reason that 12 Texas cities—including Houston and San Antonio—appear on the League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Friendly Communities list, while Dallas does not. Houston!
But, if cyclists lower their expectations, there is reason to hope. Until recently, one city department built the bike lanes, and another maintained them. That arrangement wasn’t ideal. In August, Interim City Manager Kimberly Tolbert issued a memo to the City Council about a forthcoming update to the city’s 2011 bike plan. She wrote, in part: “We realized synergy and optimized resources by combining the Department of Transportation and [Department of] Public Works into one department named Transportation and Public Works Department. … Therefore, the Department plans to use engineers from its roadway and traffic engineering sections to support Bike Lane projects.” Also, she noted, DART used some of its excess sales tax funds to give the city $2.2 million for bike lane projects, which will include a new $200,000 bike-lane sweeper. In total, the fiscal year 2025 bike lane budget will be $4 million, a 60 percent increase over fiscal year 2024.
So we’ve got synergy. We’ve got roadway and traffic engineers working on bike projects. We’ve got a budget that would buy a decent house in Lakewood. And we’ve got a new street sweeper that we can perhaps wrap with a sweet Y’all Street graphic featuring Mayor Eric Johnson in a three-piece suit and spats. Next year.
Neighborhood Spotlight
Dallas
By the way, Tolbert wrote her memo on city stationery, the bottom of which features this slogan, in quotes: “Service First, Now!” And then, beneath the command, as if the city had gotten ahold of an early draft of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,” these words appear: “Connect—Collaborate—Communicate.”
If only exclamation marks and alliteration could clean up this town.
This story originally appeared in the October issue of D Magazine. Write to timr@dmagazine.com.
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