Fort Worth Cyclists Elated; City Council Implementationof 60 Miles of Bicycle Routes & Lanes

On Monday, October 23, 2006, at 6:30 p.m., under the leadership of Jim Wilson and Kyle Carr, the Lockheed Martin Bicycle Club gathered over 110 bicycle aficionados for a public meeting at the Lockheed Martin Recreational Association Headquarters. Helen Chaney, Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Task Force planner for the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) made a presentation on the bicycle routes in the Greater Fort Worth Metropolitan Area.

Special guests included Fort Worth Councilman Carter Burdette, Texas Bicycle Coalition’s Dr. Byron de Sousa, Bike DFW President Michelle Holcomb, Fort Worth Councilman Jungus Jordan and Streams and Valleys Robert Schumann. The audience had the opportunity to hear what NCTCOG has on the drawing board for cyclists in North Texas. Coalition’s Elaine Williams and KC Jones were also present together with a long list of LMRA Bicycle Club members, and several bicycle shop owners.

The Fort Worth cyclist community also heard with great interest from Fort Worth planner Rick Vasquez that the 60 miles of bicycle routes and lanes are finally being implemented and should be completed before the end of the year. The meeting was a momentous success for the cycling community that has been waiting for many years for those bicycle routes and lanes to become a reality.

Fort Worth cyclists have had their expectations augmented on those routes since May 2006 when under the sponsorship of Dr. Byron Sousa, Jim Wilson and Kyle Carr who gathered over 130 members from the cycling community before Fort Worth City Council. They made such convincing arguments and with such a formidable show of voter force, Council became convinced that if Fort Worth devotes to the planning and construction of safe bicycle route networks this will mean improved air quality, improved health, decreased travel time, expanded multi-modal transportation alternatives, expanded local and regional opportunities for tourism, increased federal funding locally and regionally, and above all, a better quality of life for the community.