A Bike Parking Boom in Fort Worth

A growing population of
bicycle riders in Forth Worth needs more racks than these. (Photo: Fort
Worthology)

A tip of the hat goes to our member blog Fort
Worthology for being part of the bike parking solution in Fort
Worth, Texas.

Just a few months ago, the city approved an ambitious "Bike
Fort Worth" bicycle transportation plan, which aims to create
nearly 1,000 miles of bike lanes -- up from 100 miles today. Of course,
the growing number of people on bicycles in town means a growing need
for places to park bikes. That's where yesterday's Fort Worthology post
picks up. Kevin Buchanan writes:

It’s not every day that we get to report on something we actually
had a hand in, but today is one of those days. Fort Worth South, Inc. wanted
to improve the bike parking situation in the Near Southside as part of
their larger goal of huge bike infrastructure improvements across the
district, and they decided they wanted some outside help. So they called
us and Trinity Bicycles
up and asked if we’d collaborate on a new bike parking improvement plan.
After a lot of discussion, many meetings and several in-the-field work
sessions identifying parking locations, ideal setups and more, we put
together a comprehensive bike parking plan. Now, we’re happy to report,
Phase One of the plan has been approved by the city and funded by the
Near Southside TIF (Tax Increment Finance district), so we can give some
details.

While we’re still finalizing the number of racks and such, we can
say that this will be a pretty dramatic increase in bike parking, even
in Phase One. At the moment, there are approximately 12 of the
city-installed Texas star “lollipop” racks across the entire district.…
Even in the best of cases, the Texas star racks are less than ideal --
they look more like street art than bike racks, making them not obvious
to riders, and there are simply too few of them and in too few
locations. With the large increases in bike traffic in the Near
Southside in the last year or so, thanks to the Magnolia Avenue bike
lanes, groups like the Night Riders and a continued increase in new
urban residents, the existing bike parking infrastructure was becoming
very inadequate to meet resident and visitor needs.

As mentioned above, we’re still finalizing all the numbers, so we
can’t give a specific number yet, but we’re fairly confident that you
can look forward to dozens of new [simple 'staple'] racks in Phase One. 

Nice work. The bicycle transportation scene in that part of Texas
has a lot of potential.

More from around the network: The
Dead Horse Times analyzes plans for a Columbia River crossing
between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. Walkable
Dallas-Forth Worth asks, What is livability? And The
City Fix kicks off a great new series on "Access for All" with a
post about Rio street dwellers and how their lives are affected by the
lack of good public transit.