Or, how bicycle advocates in Oak Cliff are trying to move Dallas up from the bottom of the pile when it comes to urban cycling
“As long as I’m the bike coordinator for the city, Dallas will never have on-street bike lanes.”
- PM Summer, Dallas Transportation Alternatives Coordinator/Effective Cycling Instructor
Earlier in the week when I was doing our usual blog roundup column, I was astonished to find this article at Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, along with the quote above that is prominently displayed in their sidebar. The Dallas bicycle coordinator, PM Summer, apparently believes that bicycle lanes are dangerous, even in the face of mountains of evidence that prove otherwise. Even TxDOT knows more about how to make a road safe for cyclists.
Another tidbit that Bike Friendly Oak Cliff highlights on their site is a Bicycling Magazine story from June that declared Dallas to to be the worst city for cycling, stating, among other things:
“While the city does have an ambitious cycling plan called Velo Web, which would create a 300-plus mile network of bike lanes, it has been stalled for a decade.”
Bike lanes work. Just see the Portland State University study from earlier this year. It is completely unacceptable for a major metropolitan city like Dallas to have a bicycle coordinator who doesn’t want to seriously work to increase cycling as transportation. He is doing the citizens of his city a huge disservice. Why is this man still employed by the City of Dallas? He is putting citizens at risk by adhering to his extreme ideology.
I highly encourage our readers to first read a few posts at the Cycle Dallas blog, written by PM Summer. See how he refers to infrastructure like bike lanes and bike boxes as a “pernicious fad” for example. Or this:
“Bike lanes encourage (poor cyclist) behavior by explicitly telling cyclists that they are in a different traffic reality, and that they are “entitled” to behave contrary to the laws and rules that apply to real vehicles.”
It seems like PM Summer is a social Darwinist of sorts who believes that only the most elite cyclists deserve to even survive on Dallas roads.
After that, visit, and support, the efforts of Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, a group of cycling advocates who are trying to fight this insanity.
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on Nov 26th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Yuck. Aside from being all mavericky, I find little appealing about this guy’s site.
on Nov 26th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
i called the mayor’s office and got sent around to a couple of city managers and assistant city managers.
i ended up with the number to the assistant city manager in charge for Public Works – the department in which this PM guy works.
Assistant City Mgr Ramon Miguez
214-670-3308
Ramon and crew were out but I left my contact info with someone.
I also used the online contact form to send an email to the Mayor demanding PM’s removal from his position:
Hello Mayor,
It’s come to my attention that PM Summer – your bicycle coordinator for the city – has been responsible for holding up development of the bike plan in Dallas. As I understand it, Dallas ranks as the worst cycling city in the U.S., due in part to it having exactly zero mileage of bike lanes.
This is a travesty.
PM Summer needs to be relieved of his duties immediately and replaced with a competent, pro-bicycle coordinator. There is no other alternative.
Thank you.
A couple of phone calls before the Holiday would be nice, and then we should start dialing on Monday. This guy has to go – he can’t be in that position. Not possible. Don’t demand anything less than his ouster.
on Nov 26th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I don’t think he’s wrong about bike lanes. Bike lanes clearly correlate with cyclist safety, but I’m not sure if they *cause* cyclist safety. There are a lot of poorly planned, dangerous bike lanes out there, and the presence of a bike lane (anecdotally) makes drivers less willing to share the road. Dangerous bike lanes are more politically feasible than safe bike lanes because they require drivers to “sacrifice” less parking and road space. Using bike lane miles as a metric for cyclist safety doesn’t make much sense.
I think the correlation between bike lanes and cyclist safety is due to novice cyclists’ perception of safety. When I started biking for transportation, the fact that there was a clear place for me to be on the road contributed heavily to me feeling safe enough to actually get on the road, and I think others probably feel the same way. Bike lanes convince more people to bike. The more cyclists there are, the more drivers are aware of the need to accommodate them, which leads to greater cyclist safety.
It seems to me that this guy is putting more weight on the safety of cyclists when bike lanes exist, but the bike mode share is still tiny. That’s not as ridiculous as you’re making it seem. However, it is a path to a stagnant bike mode share, so I’m curious to see what he’s doing to actually get cyclists on the road. I think there should be more of a focus on bike boulevards and well-signed, sharrowed, low traffic streets that approximate bike boulevards. If people can see from their cars that there are safe places for them to bike, more people will bike. This seems to be the main benefit of bike lanes, but it would be better achieved with pseudo- and real bike boulevards.
on Nov 26th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Natrius,
I agree that increasing the number of cyclists is a huge part of making the roads safer for cyclists in general. Roads without bicycle infrastructure serve as a barrier to those new to cycling for transportation. If we want more people to get out of their cars, we need to make alternatives easy and safe. I do not think cycling should be limited to those who are experienced or can ride 25 MPH.
I think we can argue about poorly designed and maintained bike lanes (as Marcus and I have done frequently on this site), but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water as this gentleman suggests.
on Nov 27th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Disagree with him if you want, but his position isn’t nearly as unreasonable as it may sound.
on Nov 27th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Hey Guys,
I’m an Austinite that was transplanted to Dallas two years ago. I race on the road, commute and ride with my family. The bike infrastructure in Dallas is truly awful. I don’t believe that bike lanes are the panacea to all of Dallas’s bike problems but to have a bike coordinator who is so strongly against them is ridiculous. I believe PM is a huge part of the problem but its also a problem that bikes haven’t been a priority or even on the radar of Dallas City Council and Mayors, past and present. Hopefully our efforts at Bike Friendly Oak Cliff will bring more attention to the problem. I know we’re rattling PM’s cage! Thanks for all the support!
on Nov 28th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
That is astonishing ,it has been Proven all over the World that Decent Wide Cycling Lanes Protect the Cyclists from the Mad Motorists. This PM Summer Person should be sacked as he is promoting a Car only monopoly of the Roads. If all the Motorists obeyed the 3Feet Rule Distance and avoided the Road Rage Incidents it would be a lot Safer on the Roads,just like it was back in the 1890ties but unfortunately that is not the case Today . Motorists need to be Curtailed and kept apart from the Cyclists by having Segregated Cycle Lanes where the Motorists give Parity to Cyclists at Intersections and not the other way round.
on Dec 1st, 2008 at 8:46 am
Bike lanes just for the sake of bike lanes aren’t necessarily a good thing in certain cases.
A while back , I hopped the 1M bus down to 45th street to attend a Frankenbike meet on 49 1/2 street. I started out riding east on 45th until I got to the north-south street I needed. there are bike lanes on 45th in that area, but they’re not much wider than my handlebars on my cruiser (and I ain’t kidding!). I actually ended up riding on the bike-lane stripe rather than between the stripe and the edge of the pavement. That way, car drivers seemed to feel the need to ease over a bit to get around me, rather than swooping close by my left elbow knowing that I would stay in my bike lane. To me, a bike lane that narrow is worse than no bike lane at all.
I live up in the north part of town where the streets are a bit wider and so are the bike lanes. I can ride up & down Metric with no fear, because the bike lanes are wide enough that there’s a good buffer between the cars and me. I can see that adding bike lanes on the narrower streets in the central parts of town is more problematic from the width standpoint, but I believe that the bike lanes along Metric and other streets up in my end of town should be the standard (as regards width) for any new bike lanes. Anything less, and I feel safer riding in the traffic lanes, where I will be seen by drivers as being in that lane rather than in my own little strip of pavement separate (and presumably ‘insulated’) from it.
on Dec 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Where does 45th have bike lanes? Don’t make the mistake of assuming a little area to the right of a white stripe is always a bike lane (not true on 29th, for instance).
I’ve added you folks to my blogroll, finally. And count me among those who think that bike lanes are good when done well – even for experienced cyclists, as I’ve been saying for a decade now – they utilize motorists’ built-in understanding of lane practice to provide a minimum amount of passing distance that wide curb lanes often do not, even if the average pass is sometimes less reliable.
on Dec 10th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Keep the bike lanes in Austin. There’s no place I regularly ride where they wouldn’t either arouse motorist anger when I ride safely outside them or make things more dangerous for me. There’s nothing very Darwinist about the concept that cyclists fare best when they are treated and act as traffic. Works for me – pretty much every day…
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 10:52 am
[...] Mr. Summer has some serious irrational issues. Bike lanes, aside from keeping motor vehicles cautious, promote biking. Any cyclist tackling the commute home at night will tell you that riding in the trees on the sidewalk is a slow, dangerous process. Bike lanes allow sharing of the road, especially in sectors of the city where driving is almost absurd. The more bike lanes we have, the more bikers we’ll attract. And biking is always safer in groups. >> via Austin Bike Blog [...]
on Dec 16th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Sirs – it would behoove you to read through some of PM’s very calm and reasonable information before pulling his quotes out of context. PM is very pro-cyclist as transportation, and is not an elitist. You’ve read him completely wrong.
I used to think that cycle lanes were the miracle that Dallas needed, but after reading through John Forester’s extremely detailed and interesting information (“Cyclists fare best when they act, and are treated, as the drivers of other vehicles.”) and watching some of Keri Caffrey’s fantastic tutorial videos (http://www.commuteorlando.com/), I have been moved to understand that lanes are not the answer we seek.
If you think that bicycle lanes protect you, please look no further than the very deadly accidents that have been happening this year in the “best” bicycle city–Portland.
Cycling safety comes from better education and practice, not paint stripes that make you think that you are safe.
Another key factor for me has been realizing the difference between transportation and recreation. PM’s blog and position in government is for developing transportation, not recreational facilities. As cyclists, we often confuse the two functions.
on Dec 16th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Well Eliot, I guess that’s why Dallas has such a high percentage of cyclists.
on Dec 17th, 2008 at 12:06 am
I don’t know why anyone is taking this guy seriously. His blog is one long sarcastic internet troll. (Exmaples: the contortionist joke, the t-shirt joke.) People like him are poisonous to reasoned public discourse and clear thought. What’s worse is he’s obviously not paying attention to plentiful amounts of information that contradict his stance.
Someone in his position should not be trash-talking like a 15-year old on his public blog. If I posted the way he did in a way that could be connected back to my company, I’d be fired. He should be too.
on Dec 17th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Marcus – There are a myriad of reasons why people in the DFW metroplex do not cycle for transportation. Marked lanes do not beget cyclists. Austin has the wonderful benefit of a large university centrally located and a health-conscious population. DFW is plagued by suburbs in the far reaches that do not build roads that are bicycle friendly no matter how you look at it. How cycle friendly is Round Rock? It looks to me about as cycle friendly as Plano or Frisco (not much). People in Dallas, sadly, do not live close to their work. We often live 30 minutes to an hour drive from work in parts of the town cross-sectioned by massive freeways with horrible interchanges. Cycling lanes cannot improve those situations.
David – Then don’t take his blog seriously. Go take John Forester’s website a look instead: http://www.johnforester.com/ . I really enjoy reading PM’s blog and find his humor to be a bright spot in my day. His blog is not an official blog of any sort and does not say anything about his professional career.
Thanks for letting me pitch into the conversation! Be safe out there!
on Jan 13th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
[...] WTF? Airlines are starting to charge for bikes even if the fold into normal sized luggage, the Dallas bike coordinator is anti-bike lane of any kind, and now this! Never mind that cars are the real safety hazard in this [...]
on Jan 19th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
[...] at the expense of bike lanes and other infrastructure. I’m taking about people like the Dallas Bicycle Coordinator, whom some people think we have a vendetta against. Yes, bikes can occupy the same spaces as cars [...]
on Feb 25th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
I’m pretty much terrified to ride on the streets in Dallas, other than a few residential ones and even those are getting more dangerous for bikers. People in their cars talking on their cell phones and doing their make-up in the mirror are doing good to see the car in front of them, much less a bike. I would ride to work if we had bike lanes. Dallas isn’t even pedestrian-friendly in many places. Try walking down Preston road south from Keller Springs to Belt Line. There is no sidewalk and barely room to walk even in the grass.