A Local Perspective
October 17, 2011
by John Willis
When people use public transportation infrastructure, whether by walking on a sidewalk, driving a car, riding a bus, catching a train or pedaling a bicycle, they have a destination in mind. The public investment in transportation connects where people are with where they want to go, and how they want to get there.
One of the neighborhood leaders in my Garland, Texas, city council district is an avid and safe bicyclist. He rides his bicycle everywhere he can, and often brings up ideas to help make Garland more cycling-friendly. Intrigued, I began looking into how to help.
Garland’s geography includes Duck Creek, a wide and very shallow, nearly stagnant stream that becomes a rushing torrent after heavy rains. For kids, its flat bed of Barnett Shale makes a natural bicycle route — as smooth as any street, but featuring turtles and tadpoles. Over the years, Duck Creek has been altered in places to help with flood control, and its floodplain now features a number of city parks. Each park is unique and distinct from the others, and they provide all the amenities modern city residents demand: hike and bike trails, recreation centers, picnic pavilions, baseball/softball fields, playgrounds and an excellent municipal tennis center.
Other important facilities on or near Duck Creek include the Lake Ray Hubbard Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Bus Center and the Downtown Garland DART blue line rail station.
In thinking about how to make Garland more bike-friendly, it struck me that a well-laid-out bicycle route along the creek between these parks might encourage more outdoor recreation opportunities while simultaneously increasing bike and pedestrian connectivity with mass transit centers.
The city’s GIS mapping tool helped me envision how the parks could be connected. In June 2009, I proposed a route from the DART transit center, along the Duck Creek Green Belt, then on surface streets to other parks, through downtown Garland and ending at the Downtown Garland DART light rail station.
While local elected officials make policy, their professional staff has the expertise. I met with Robert Wunderlich, Garland’s director of transportation, to see what he thought of connecting the parks and transit centers. He used his knowledge and transportation engineering experience to refine and expand my ideas into a broader, regional bicycle connectivity program.
The larger picture includes linking the Garland bicycle park-connector to other bike routes in two of Garland’s neighboring cities.
This route will serve as a pilot project aimed at enhancing safety in addition to connectivity. Where cars and bicycles will need to share space, different pavement markings or other features will be evaluated for effectiveness at ensuring that motorists are aware of sharing the road with cyclists.
In some areas, “sharrows” (special pavement markings alerting motorists to the likely presence of bicyclists) will be painted onto streets. In others, separate bike lanes and wider outside lanes will be installed. Dedicated bike bridges must be built in some spots, while others require only “bike route” signs. The street markings and modification will cost $100,000, while bridges and paths are estimated to cost about $600,000 each.
The city will collect data from cyclists and drivers to see which methods they prefer, and what would be best for the safety of all. Those findings will be incorporated into the next generation of cycling infrastructure in Garland.
In 2010, Mr. Wunderlich asked the Garland City Council to present this proposal to the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), seeking grant funding from the COG. The council approved the requested submittal, but funding was not guaranteed. Fortunately, the Regional Transportation Council of the COG saw the value of the plan. Within a few months, the NCTCOG recommended Garland for a $2.55 million grant to make the route a reality.
So what is the leadership lesson from this success? Elected officials cannot achieve anything working alone. Local officials can only be effective if they listen to their constituents, partner with their colleagues and work respectfully with their professional staff experts.
Regularly attending neighborhood meetings and carefully listening to residents helps officials better understand unique neighborhood concerns. “Gripes” sometimes turn into real opportunities to improve the quality of life for the whole city, and maybe even a region.
This is why it is vitally important to forge effective working relationships with other local, state and national elected officials, and regional planning organizations. The bigger the vision, the more players are needed to turn a dream into reality.
John Willis is a council member in Garland, Texas.