Part Two of our collaboration with the Dallas Documenters outlines the most recent meeting between the Department of Transportation and Public Works and the City Council’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee about the status of the Dallas Bike Plan in a meeting that could just as easily be subtitled, “How to spend $2.5 million on a PowerPoint presentation.” 

This phase of the project was launched in January 2022, at which time it was presented as an update to the Dallas Bike Plan of 2011, which identified itself as an attempt to update the Bike Plan of 1985, an update to the Bike Plan of 1975.

After multiple public engagement sessions, the primary deliverable of this meeting was the announcement of yet another round of public engagement in order to finalize the plan for the City Council’s adoption in 2025.

How to spend $2.5 million on a PowerPoint presentation.

Meanwhile, costs continue to rise. The estimate for completing “high-scoring projects” in Phase 2 of the Implementation Plan is currently $300 million. The original 1975 plan allocated $7.5 million for 36 trails consisting of 515 miles of bikeways. The first five years (Phase 1) of the implementation of the current plan will focus on completing existing projects and perhaps some “top-scoring” unfunded projects.

To the Transportation Committee’s credit, Councilman Omar Narvaez (Committee Chairman) did question the Department about why projects were scheduled 20 years out. He also asked for more specifics about how the $2.5 million already allocated to the project had been spent after assertions that some bike lane projects might be included in “other non-bike related projects.” 

While there was no representative from Districts 4 nor 7 at the meeting, South Dallas was well represented by Transportation Committee Vice Chair Zarin Gracey (District 3), Jaime Resendez (District 5) and Tennell Atkins (District 8). Councilman Resendez expressed concerns about his district’s apparent exclusion from the plan, while Councilman Atkins requested more information about funding and how the plan would serve his constituency in the UNT area.  

The first five years (Phase 1) of the implementation of the current plan will focus on completing existing projects and perhaps some ‘top-scoring’ unfunded projects.

We here at the Dallas Weekly decided to talk to a few local cyclists to get their opinion about the state of the current Bike Plan and to find out if they were aware of the City’s efforts.   

The next meeting to discuss the Bike Plan is currently scheduled for February 2025. Check out the whole interview on our YouTube page. Please like and subscribe. And let us know what you think!

This article was completed in collaboration with the Dallas Documenters, an initiative launched by the Dallas Free Press in 2023 to cover public meetings at the local level. For more information about how to become a Documenter, contact Dallas Free Press at info@dallasfreepress or visit the Dallas Documenters main page.