well, as the article notes, part of that is because dallas isn't like a lot of cities and until very recently, it was basically one big downtown area with no population surrounded by a ring of...
You can't survive in the area without a car. People commute an hour each way just to get to work. To go to a football game is 20 miles from the core. Every attraction is on the other side of town from where you are likely to live.
well, as the article notes, part of that is because dallas isn't like a lot of cities and until very recently, it was basically one big downtown area with no population surrounded by a ring of suburbs and almost-suburbs where everybody lived. that's gradually changing, though, which is necessitating some thinking about if the city needs to facilitate this or how it would do so:
In 2000, downtown Dallas’s population was around 2,200. Between 2000 and 2010, with rapid growth in the suburbs, the city’s population grew by just 0.8 percent. This was during the decade when a residential revival was transforming business districts and downtowns nationwide.
...
But Dallas has started to get aboard the downtown revival bandwagon. The city’s population has increased by 12 percent since 2010, and downtown is now home to 11,000 residents. That number is still small for a city center where 135,000 people work and illustrative of the lack of new housing, particularly affordable housing, where demand has increased.
This really encapsulates the argument that is so hard to make to cities on why they should invest in bicycling infrastructure for a population that doesn't exist. Cities don't want to spend money...
This really encapsulates the argument that is so hard to make to cities on why they should invest in bicycling infrastructure for a population that doesn't exist.
Cities don't want to spend money on cycling upgrades because no one cycles. But people don't cycle to work if there's no infrastructure, or the infrastructure feels unsafe. Especially not women, older people, or youth.
I only started cycling to work when a route that was mostly residential (I only had to cross a main street - at lights) and paths became clear to me, and then when we moved, we actually chose a neighbourhood based on its access to the pathway system we have here because I LOVE bicycle commuting it turns out. But it's very scary to bike on streets with traffic, the rules aren't very clear, and cars don't know how to treat cyclists, so it's pretty dangerous.
Infrastructure and education is more important than bikes themselves IMO. Here in Istanbul the council sprinkled bikes along the seaside. They are not as cheap as they should be, but not expensive...
Infrastructure and education is more important than bikes themselves IMO. Here in Istanbul the council sprinkled bikes along the seaside. They are not as cheap as they should be, but not expensive either. But the problem is, nobody knows what to do with bikes and nobody knows what to do when bikes are around.
Bikers cycle on the pavements. That is a horrible thing to do, may harm both the pedestrians and the bikers themselves. They don't know what to do where and when, and how. Car users don't know how to share the road with bikers (and drivers in Istanbul are agressive). There are a bunch of bike lanes along the seafront, but the are meant for recreational cycling rather than commute, and pedestrians often invade them (apparently many fools are attracted to colour).
Because of this the bikes only serve recreational users in a few spots, even tho they are out there. If the infrastructure and education was provided, instead of rental bikes and useless bike lanes, some parts of the city could indeed be quite bike friendly: the ancient city is quite walkable (w.r.t. distances, that is), most traffic there can easily be replaced with commuter and cargo bikes. Some other more ancient parts are similar. But instead people try to fiddle their cars into every little streetling that is barely wider than those, and (even motor)cycling around the streets is an extreme sport.
This might be misdirection of anger, but sometimes when things like this fail, to me it seems like, the fault of venture capital. (I know not everything can be VC's fault) But, in a city where...
This might be misdirection of anger, but sometimes when things like this fail, to me it seems like, the fault of venture capital. (I know not everything can be VC's fault)
But, in a city where there is very little cycling infrastructure, why the hell would the roll-out of bikesharing services be 20,000 bikes. That's insane. That's like, one bike for every 50 people in the city (not sure this is correct, as I just googled the population of dallas - maybe it didn't include their metro in the 1.3 million?) which is an insanely high number for a city where everyone is already getting around by driving. My city has a pretty similar population to dallas, and we got limebike here in November (weird to roll out in the beginning of winter in the canadian prairies, but that's another story) and we got... 375 bikes. And we have... some cycling infrastructure, and quite a lot of people who commute using transit and therefore would be available to toodle around on a bike downtown.
It just seems like, maybe if they hadn't overloaded the city with so many bikes that they became an annoying infestation with unsustainable costs, maybe they could have built up interest and riders at a more reasonable rate? But "slow growth" is an impossibility with VC.
I don't know. I bike to work and I think everyone should bike everywhere (as long as they have decent biking etiquette) so I'm biased.
Somewhat related, this was an interesting article about how all of these VC-funded bike-sharing startups in China affected a town where a lot of the bicycle manufacturing was done: How China’s...
Somewhat related, this was an interesting article about how all of these VC-funded bike-sharing startups in China affected a town where a lot of the bicycle manufacturing was done: How China’s ‘Unicorns’ Shook a Bicycle Town
it's probably a lot for dallas the city, which does have a population of about 1.3 million people, but that number definitely doesn't include the metro area. just the dallas urban area has a...
That's like, one bike for every 50 people in the city (not sure this is correct, as I just googled the population of dallas - maybe it didn't include their metro in the 1.3 million?)
it's probably a lot for dallas the city, which does have a population of about 1.3 million people, but that number definitely doesn't include the metro area. just the dallas urban area has a population of 5.1 million and the actually defined metropolitan area has a population of 7.2 million, so it's less weird of a number if you consider that.
using the 7.2 million number, that's one bike per 360 people. Yeah that's way more reasonable! In calgary, we got one bike per 3467 people though, so dallas still got 10x more bikes than us per...
using the 7.2 million number, that's one bike per 360 people. Yeah that's way more reasonable!
In calgary, we got one bike per 3467 people though, so dallas still got 10x more bikes than us per person. And honestly, the >400 bikes we got feels like a lot sometimes, due to their dockless nature, they're just kind of all over the place. They are doing okay here though, even with their inexplicable winter rollout and their (imo) insane price!
Ok definitely back to more unreasonable ratios again then! I'm not sure if Dallas is like Calgary in the way that an awful lot of people work downtown even though they live quite distant, and that...
Ok definitely back to more unreasonable ratios again then!
I'm not sure if Dallas is like Calgary in the way that an awful lot of people work downtown even though they live quite distant, and that parking downtown here is very expensive, so many people come downtown using transit access, which then is the kind of person I would think bikeshares are targeting - you're already in the area, and you might like to move somewhere faster than walking can take you, like out for lunch, maybe to and from a pub or something after work. From the train station to your office at best! No one is really expecting anyone to commute using these kinds of rental bikes I don't think.
My bike commute is 9.4 kilometers, which takes me about 35 minutes. Even if my home was in the area where you can park a limebike for free after using it (it isn't quite) my commute would cost me (I think) $11.50 in rental fees each direction. My (medium good) summer bike cost me $880, which isn't much more than a month would cost me using the rental for commuting.
As a resident of the DFW metroplex, I don't see this ever changing to any meaningful degree. For starters, I point to @Loire's comment. DFW is just too damn big for cycling to be much more than a...
As a resident of the DFW metroplex, I don't see this ever changing to any meaningful degree.
For starters, I point to @Loire's comment. DFW is just too damn big for cycling to be much more than a hobby for most. It requires highways and tollroads to get anywhere efficiently. Dallas, by itself, is 386 square miles, compared to Seattle, which is 84 square miles or San Francisco which sits at just 47 square miles. Austin is closer, at 272 square miles but isn't part of a sprawling metroplex like Dallas is.
I consider myself lucky that it takes me ONLY 15 minutes to drive to work. My girlfriend has to drive 45 minutes, if there's no traffic. If she's trying to get to DFW airport during morning or evening rush hour, it takes her, at minimum, an hour, and usually longer than that.
Following the articles statements about the urban area growing in population.....That's a hard sell too. Downtown Dallas is sardine can of business towers and high rise apartments and condos. Extremely expensive high rise apartments and condos. If you want to live anywhere close to downtown Dallas, you're looking at really expensive or really ghetto. Not really a lot of in between. The article mentions Oak Cliff....an area of Dallas long known to be risky. It has a crime rate 64% higher than the national average and is statistically safer than just 12% of Texas cities. It has a violent crime rate of 2.7 per 100k thousand, more than double the state average(1.2) and national average(1.05)
The Texas heat would be another impediment. Average temp for June, July, and August, the traditional "Summer" months, is 94 degrees. So even if Dallas took a more bike friendly approach, you're looking at a significant portion of the year where trying to ride a bike after 8 or 9 in the morning carries a risk of heat stroke. In addition to the heavy traffic and risk of automobile accidents.
well, as the article notes, part of that is because dallas isn't like a lot of cities and until very recently, it was basically one big downtown area with no population surrounded by a ring of suburbs and almost-suburbs where everybody lived. that's gradually changing, though, which is necessitating some thinking about if the city needs to facilitate this or how it would do so:
This really encapsulates the argument that is so hard to make to cities on why they should invest in bicycling infrastructure for a population that doesn't exist.
Cities don't want to spend money on cycling upgrades because no one cycles. But people don't cycle to work if there's no infrastructure, or the infrastructure feels unsafe. Especially not women, older people, or youth.
I only started cycling to work when a route that was mostly residential (I only had to cross a main street - at lights) and paths became clear to me, and then when we moved, we actually chose a neighbourhood based on its access to the pathway system we have here because I LOVE bicycle commuting it turns out. But it's very scary to bike on streets with traffic, the rules aren't very clear, and cars don't know how to treat cyclists, so it's pretty dangerous.
Infrastructure and education is more important than bikes themselves IMO. Here in Istanbul the council sprinkled bikes along the seaside. They are not as cheap as they should be, but not expensive either. But the problem is, nobody knows what to do with bikes and nobody knows what to do when bikes are around.
Bikers cycle on the pavements. That is a horrible thing to do, may harm both the pedestrians and the bikers themselves. They don't know what to do where and when, and how. Car users don't know how to share the road with bikers (and drivers in Istanbul are agressive). There are a bunch of bike lanes along the seafront, but the are meant for recreational cycling rather than commute, and pedestrians often invade them (apparently many fools are attracted to colour).
Because of this the bikes only serve recreational users in a few spots, even tho they are out there. If the infrastructure and education was provided, instead of rental bikes and useless bike lanes, some parts of the city could indeed be quite bike friendly: the ancient city is quite walkable (w.r.t. distances, that is), most traffic there can easily be replaced with commuter and cargo bikes. Some other more ancient parts are similar. But instead people try to fiddle their cars into every little streetling that is barely wider than those, and (even motor)cycling around the streets is an extreme sport.
This might be misdirection of anger, but sometimes when things like this fail, to me it seems like, the fault of venture capital. (I know not everything can be VC's fault)
But, in a city where there is very little cycling infrastructure, why the hell would the roll-out of bikesharing services be 20,000 bikes. That's insane. That's like, one bike for every 50 people in the city (not sure this is correct, as I just googled the population of dallas - maybe it didn't include their metro in the 1.3 million?) which is an insanely high number for a city where everyone is already getting around by driving. My city has a pretty similar population to dallas, and we got limebike here in November (weird to roll out in the beginning of winter in the canadian prairies, but that's another story) and we got... 375 bikes. And we have... some cycling infrastructure, and quite a lot of people who commute using transit and therefore would be available to toodle around on a bike downtown.
It just seems like, maybe if they hadn't overloaded the city with so many bikes that they became an annoying infestation with unsustainable costs, maybe they could have built up interest and riders at a more reasonable rate? But "slow growth" is an impossibility with VC.
I don't know. I bike to work and I think everyone should bike everywhere (as long as they have decent biking etiquette) so I'm biased.
Somewhat related, this was an interesting article about how all of these VC-funded bike-sharing startups in China affected a town where a lot of the bicycle manufacturing was done: How China’s ‘Unicorns’ Shook a Bicycle Town
it's probably a lot for dallas the city, which does have a population of about 1.3 million people, but that number definitely doesn't include the metro area. just the dallas urban area has a population of 5.1 million and the actually defined metropolitan area has a population of 7.2 million, so it's less weird of a number if you consider that.
using the 7.2 million number, that's one bike per 360 people. Yeah that's way more reasonable!
In calgary, we got one bike per 3467 people though, so dallas still got 10x more bikes than us per person. And honestly, the >400 bikes we got feels like a lot sometimes, due to their dockless nature, they're just kind of all over the place. They are doing okay here though, even with their inexplicable winter rollout and their (imo) insane price!
Ok definitely back to more unreasonable ratios again then!
I'm not sure if Dallas is like Calgary in the way that an awful lot of people work downtown even though they live quite distant, and that parking downtown here is very expensive, so many people come downtown using transit access, which then is the kind of person I would think bikeshares are targeting - you're already in the area, and you might like to move somewhere faster than walking can take you, like out for lunch, maybe to and from a pub or something after work. From the train station to your office at best! No one is really expecting anyone to commute using these kinds of rental bikes I don't think.
My bike commute is 9.4 kilometers, which takes me about 35 minutes. Even if my home was in the area where you can park a limebike for free after using it (it isn't quite) my commute would cost me (I think) $11.50 in rental fees each direction. My (medium good) summer bike cost me $880, which isn't much more than a month would cost me using the rental for commuting.
As a resident of the DFW metroplex, I don't see this ever changing to any meaningful degree.
For starters, I point to @Loire's comment. DFW is just too damn big for cycling to be much more than a hobby for most. It requires highways and tollroads to get anywhere efficiently. Dallas, by itself, is 386 square miles, compared to Seattle, which is 84 square miles or San Francisco which sits at just 47 square miles. Austin is closer, at 272 square miles but isn't part of a sprawling metroplex like Dallas is.
I consider myself lucky that it takes me ONLY 15 minutes to drive to work. My girlfriend has to drive 45 minutes, if there's no traffic. If she's trying to get to DFW airport during morning or evening rush hour, it takes her, at minimum, an hour, and usually longer than that.
Following the articles statements about the urban area growing in population.....That's a hard sell too. Downtown Dallas is sardine can of business towers and high rise apartments and condos. Extremely expensive high rise apartments and condos. If you want to live anywhere close to downtown Dallas, you're looking at really expensive or really ghetto. Not really a lot of in between. The article mentions Oak Cliff....an area of Dallas long known to be risky. It has a crime rate 64% higher than the national average and is statistically safer than just 12% of Texas cities. It has a violent crime rate of 2.7 per 100k thousand, more than double the state average(1.2) and national average(1.05)
The Texas heat would be another impediment. Average temp for June, July, and August, the traditional "Summer" months, is 94 degrees. So even if Dallas took a more bike friendly approach, you're looking at a significant portion of the year where trying to ride a bike after 8 or 9 in the morning carries a risk of heat stroke. In addition to the heavy traffic and risk of automobile accidents.