Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has released the draft of the Houston Bike Plan, the next step in the City’s efforts to help make Houston a safer, healthier, and more accessible bicycle-friendly city. This Bike Plan integrates with the ongoing Bayou Greenways 2020 project and identifies additional bike facilities needed to achieve safe access to these attractive bikeway corridors from more neighborhoods.
“I’m pleased to release this ambitious, yet realistic plan for making Houston an outstanding place for riding a bicycle,” a press release quoted Mayor Turner as saying. “Providing safe, convenient means for cycling to parks, schools and jobs is an important part of providing healthy mobility and recreation choices for Houstonians. I urge residents to review the document and then send us feedback. Your input is essential to ensuring we have a comprehensive plan for moving forward.”
Once fully implemented, this Plan will triple the existing bikeway miles and provide six times more high comfort bikeways miles than what exists now.
The draft of the plan already represents a significant amount of public engagement. The City and its partners sought input at over 70 community meetings and events. The project received over 1,000 public comments and nearly 3,000 online surveys were completed.
The Plan recommends:
- Creating 328 miles of high-comfort bikeways through modest investments in short-term projects such as street restriping and wayfinding signage on low-volume, low-speed streets.
- Adding 86 miles of high-comfort bikeways through Key Connection Projects to help connect neighborhoods and activity centers to a city-wide network.
- Establishing a long-term vision to add 861 miles in high-comfort bikeway facilities, including nearly 600 miles that will be developed over time as streets are reconstructed.
- Creating a Bicycle Toolbox that contains comprehensive approaches and recommendations for the design of bikeway projects, a policy framework, and programs that will educate and encourage more people to bike.
With the draft Plan complete, the City is seeking feedback from Houstonians. Visit the website at HoustonBikePlan.org for more information and to let the City know what you think. The public comment period closes April 11, 2016. The City will then modify the draft Plan based on the feedback received from the community.
Funding partners for the project include BikeHouston, Houston Parks Board, Houston-Galveston Area Council, Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).