As Houston’s biking infrastructure continues to be a scorching subject amongst metropolis residents, Houston Parks Board President and CEO Beth White mentioned coordination between departments is essential to bridge the hole between park trails and metropolis streets.
“There’s all the time an intersection of streets, trails and parks,” White mentioned Friday on Houston Public Media’s Hey Houston present. “What our focus is, is on increasing and enhancing and connecting the bayou greenway system. … It is 150-plus miles of linear parks and trails alongside 9 main bayous. They intersect with streets all through town.”
White’s feedback to Hey Houston adopted appearances on the present this week by Mayor John Whitmire, who addressed his stances on mobility and transportation infrastructure, and BikeHouston Govt Director Joe Cutrufo, who criticized the mayor for halting town’s years-long enlargement of its bike lane community. Since taking workplace final yr, Whitmire has paused or altered beforehand deliberate infrastructure tasks that known as for growing house for cyclists and pedestrians, and in some instances his administration has eliminated present protections for cyclists.
Final month, a gaggle of residents protested after protecting limitations known as “armadillos” had been eliminated from the bike lane on Heights Boulevard. There was related backlash earlier this week after Houston Public Works abruptly started eradicating the two-way bike lane on Austin Road with out public discover, with Whitmire’s administration saying they created questions of safety and had been undesirable by residents who stay on the road.
Whitmire’s administration has since reversed course and mentioned a motorcycle lane will stay on Austin Road, modeling the just lately modified bike lane on Heights Boulevard, in accordance with a Friday social media submit by town.
Though the nonprofit parks board has no jurisdiction over on-street bike lanes, White mentioned the division tries to collaborate with town.
“The place we are able to, we work carefully with town, and so they’re the motive force for the on-street trails, however we are the driver for the off-street trails,” she mentioned. “We’ve got to work in shut coordination. Like, the place [do] these trails must be so that folks can get to the bayou greenways. As a result of, the entire level of the greenways is to attach individuals.”
Talking on Hey Houston earlier this week, Whitmire characterised town’s bike amenities as primarily for leisure use.
“The final administration, and quite a lot of the activists in that administration, apparently had been simply constructing bike trails and lanes as quick as they might, wherever they might,” Whitmire mentioned, referring to the administration of late former Mayor Sylvester Turner. “So, there’s been a major pushback throughout Houston. We take heed to individuals.”
White mentioned that whereas the paths are used for recreation, some residents additionally use them to commute in tandem with on-street bike lanes.
“It is commuters, it is recreation bikers, it is pedestrians, it is individuals who wish to transfer concerning the metropolis otherwise,” White mentioned. “It is an lively transportation community, not simply linear parks, however it’s transportation.”
The Austin Road bike lanes, stretching from Houston Neighborhood School to Buffalo Bayou Park, had been put in in 2020 and funded by practically $2 million from the workplace of Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who condemned their removing.
White mentioned she hopes town is trying into methods of increasing bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
As for a way the parks board is trying to develop its community of trails, White mentioned it has begun discussions with CenterPoint Power to utilize utility easement corridors — the open areas typically discovered round energy infrastructure.
“The mayor talked about a few of these the opposite day — Spring Department, an 11-mile section that can join White Oak Bayou Greenway on the east all the way in which to Addicks Reservoir,” she mentioned. “We have already got a portion open. We’re designing and constructing the following one. We’re having a look at a path within the Sharpstown space that’ll join Sharpstown to Braes [Bayou].”
