Guest column: Let’s make it safe to ride a bike in Amarillo!
How many people do you know who say, “I love to ride bikes, but I don’t feel safe riding in Amarillo!” It’s not just an Amarillo problem, but this is our home and we can do better. We know the beauty and special character of our town. We want the freedom to choose how to travel and travel safely.
Our community has an opportunity on Tuesday, October 17 to meet with the TxDOT team planning the Statewide Active Transportation Plan (SATP). Mark your calendar to attend the 2-hour public meeting from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Amarillo Civic Center Complex. The TxDOT team will bring the best data and most current transportation design knowledge to share. The mission of the plan is “a collaborative effort to advance walking, biking and rolling as viable options toward a safe, accessible, connected, and fully integrated multimodal transportation system for all Texans.” Yeah, that is a mouthful. It means that you can have choices in transportation and Amarillo can become more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.
TxDOT defines an active transportation plan as “… provides recommendations for improving conditions for bicycling, walking, rolling, or other modes that are typically human-powered, nonmotorized transportation, but may also include smaller electric-powered micromobility options such as e-scooters and e-bikes.”
The City of Amarillo has been working on the City Plan – Vision 2050. This plan has dedicated months to engage and listen to the citizens of Amarillo neighborhood by neighborhood. Think of the two plans working together to guide the growth and quality of life in Amarillo. You may think that plans are just words that sit on a shelf. I encourage you to look around. Every remarkable urban space that we are proud including Medi Park, Rock Island Rail Trail, and 9th Street Trails, began with a plan. Non-profits like Six Pack Outdoors have partnered with the City of Amarillo Parks and Recreation Department to develop public biking trails at Rick Klein and John Stiff Memorial Park.
Don’t over-fill your tires just yet. We need some reckoning with how dangerous it is to be on the road in Texas – motorized vehicle, wheelchairs, bikes, scooters, pedestrians, and heck – even baby strollers. Informing you of the high number of fatalities on Texas roadways will only darken your Sunday. Pedestrian and bike fatalities have increased over the last five years. TxDot counts every one of them. The Federal Highway Administration has taken notice. Texas gained the notorious status as a focus state and is the beneficiary of funding for education and technical assistance for bike and pedestrian safety.
TxDOT data has shown that there are three reasons for traffic accidents, injury and death: driving too fast, driving under the influence, and distracted driving. These are all actions that each of us can control. We are a friendly community. We are caring. We can work on making our roads safer.
Everyone needs to become a better driver whether you ride a bike, drive a car. Bike riders need to know the rules of the road. Texas law (551.104b) says that bikes must have a white light on the front and a red reflector or red light on the rear for riding at night. Even in our dreams of bike routes that are separated from motorized traffic, we will always need to follow traffic rules.
Remember that a car can harm a bike, and a bike can harm a pedestrian. We all need to follow safety rules and look out for each other. A quick list of bike rules is to stop at stop signs and red lights, and ride near the curb and go in the same direction as other traffic.
The good news is that there has been a greater emphasis on bike and pedestrian planning and safety over the last few years. Where there is interest, there is funding. In the last eight years TxDOT has funded over $300 million in bike and pedestrian projects. Every funded TxDOT project is required to provide features for bikes and pedestrians. Seem impossible? Just look at the new northwest section of New Loop 335 and admire the 11-foot-wide paved surface for bikes and pedestrians that is separated from cars and trucks! The City of Amarillo was awarded a grant to build a bridge over the railroad tracks in the Eastridge neighborhood with bike lanes and pedestrian sidewalks.
Here are just a few examples where TxDOT can help our community. Safe Routes to Schools is a federally funded program managed through TxDOT. The goal of the program is to make it safer for students to walk and bike to school and encourage more walking. TxDOT funds several district bike plans per year and has led to development of bicycle tourism trail routes. Let’s imagine the future of bicycle tourism in Amarillo.
Dallas didn’t achieve the Discovery Trail overnight – a 66-mile continuous paved trail. They worked as a community for decades to develop continuous paved bike trails that weave delightfully through five communities. Big projects are accomplished little by little, and project by project. We don’t know if showing up and sharing your needs and ideas at planning meetings will lead to more state and federal funding for Amarillo. We do know that communities that collaborate and do their fair share of combining ideas with a bit of local funding have a substantially better chance of getting more funding.
Amarillo can develop planning ideas to honor our unique place. Help us get there. Participate in the Statewide Active Transportation Plan public meeting on Tuesday, October 17 at 4:30 at the Amarillo Civic Center Complex.
Project by project, we can transform Amarillo into a safer place to walk, bike or roll. We can talk to each other, open our eyes to share our roads, slow down, and drive with awareness and courtesy.
Christian Fairly is the Owner of Hills Sport Shop, Kim Hooker is an Architect with Parkhill, and Devin Prater is the Owner of Sun Adventure Sports.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Another view: Let’s make it safe to ride a bike in Amarillo!
