The City of Richardson has been creating an Active Transportation Plan (ATP) for most of the last year. It's intended by the City "to elevate the existing bicycle and pedestrian network to better serve non-motorized mobility, create connections to key destinations, and build upon Richardson’s efforts towards being a pedestrian- and bicycle- friendly community." It's nearing completion and a (final?) draft was presented to the City Council February 6, 2023.
Read the plan and judge it yourself. I'm here to report on the reactions and feedback from our City Council. Six of the seven will be on the ballot this May (all except Mayor Paul Voelker, who isn't running for re-election).
Bob Dubey referred to the implementation time frames — short term (Year 1-2) mid-term (Year 3-6) and long-term (year 7-10) — and asked what determines which projects get to fall into each time frame? The answer was that it all depends on funding and capacity, with opportunity also playing a role. Dubey replied, "Thank you. I know that's how we do our magic, so to speak, as we work through it and I just wanted to make sure we were all saying the same thing."
I would have asked for something more on the funding issue: a funding model. In a separate agenda item, the City Council reviewed the City's 65+ & disabled persons property tax exemption and was told that the City "has a goal to maintain a tax benefit of approximately 30% of the average senior’s home value." Because of the recent rise in appraised values of homes, that goal will require the City to raise the current exemption from $105,000 to $121,449. The City has a numeric guide. The figure they settle on for the budget will be based on the model they use as a guide.
I'd like to see a model like that used to gauge the appropriate funding for the ATP. For example, below is a pie chart for the 2022-2023 projected expenditures of the City. It shows that 11.14% of the budget goes to "Infrastructure and Mobility." And 9.91% goes to "Recreation and Leisure." I'd like to see ATP funding broken out from these, especially from from the automobile infrastructure. What do we desire ATP funding to be, as a percentage of total transportation infrastructure funding? When setting each year's annual budget, the City should try to maintain that target. Otherwise, I fear that the ATP projects will be the first place they will look to cut when budgets get tight.
Janet DePuy commented on how important the ATP will be for persons without cars to get to jobs. She called it the last mile between, say, work and home if you ride DART trains. She encouraged the City to find ways to support things like share-bike programs to fill that gap. She identified the West Spring Valley corridor as being where the greatest concentration of what the City calls vulnerable populations are (i.e., people most likely not to have cars). I was pleased to see her focus on the need that ATP serve more than recreational uses.
Ken Hutchenrider made an astute observation. He noticed that coordination with UT-Dallas was lacking. The response to this was, to paraphrase very loosely, "You're right." This is unacceptable. Many needs and innovations in active transportation can be expected to show up first on college campuses. The City absolutely needs to coordinate with the only college campus in our City.
Jennifer Justice expressed her satisfaction that the plan explicitly calls out vehicles like wheelchairs used by mobility-impaired persons. Like Janet DePuy's observation, I like Justice's focus on the need that ATP serve more than recreational uses.
Arefin Shamsul zeroed in a longstanding dream of mine — that Richardson find ways to "punch through" (my words, not Arefin's) Central Expressway to knit east and west sides together with safe and inviting sidewalks, trails, and bike paths. In fact, my dream was even bigger than that — "Imagine There's No Central", but I'll settle for a few bigger holes in that barrier.
Joe Corcoran wanted the City to clarify whether private citizens would still be allowed, even encouraged, to implement projects that are sometimes described as tactical urbanism. The response was affirmative (I think). I hope so. Good ideas come from inspired individuals and private groups.
Corcoran also asked about the implementation schedule of the plan for a "Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee" (BPAC). The answer was that if such a committee were approved by the City Council, it likely would be defined this summer, in time to solicit and appoint members in the fall, with the operation of the committee beginning in January, 2024.
Mayor Paul Voelker also commented on the plan for a BPAC. He was concerned about the cost of adding another committee to city government. He said he won't be on City Council when this is decided, but he'd ask for a cost/benefit analysis for a new BPAC. Asking for a "cost/benefit analysis" is one way of delaying something you're against without having to say you're against it. Not that a cost/benefit analysis is a bad idea, per se. It can be a good idea. But why start with the BPAC? It should be done generally. I'd like to see cost/benefit analyses for economic development incentives the City hands out, including a comparison with the cost/benefit of alternatives, like letting the free market decide what to build without incentives. Don't just assume nothing will ever get built without incentives. If such analyses are done by the City, the results are seldom discussed openly on City Council.
Voelker also said the City ought to have a resource for frequently asked questions (FAQs) about active transportation issues. (e.g., "Are bicycle helmets required?", "Can I ride a bike on the sidewalk?", etc.) Even if the City is not responsible for some of issues (e.g., "Where do I get a driver's license?"), the City can still point people to where they can get their questions answered. This is a good idea. The City website already has a page giving links for commonly-asked-about City serices ("I want to..."). Supplement it with a page for random FAQs that the City receives. The City is already directing people to the right places to get their questions answered. Voelker is just asking that those answers get captured on a FAQ web page for others to benefit from, too.
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