The city of Houston is building on its efforts to improve people’s ability to bicycle to more destinations, including within the Memorial and Energy Corridor areas where local improvement districts are already contributing plans to update biking networks.
The city is spending $500,000 to update a 1993 bike plan to improve its bicycling network citywide. The blueprint will establish new paths and trail connectors based on development and traffic patterns that have occurred since the 1990s. The Houston Bike Plan, which has an April completion deadline, also will include possible funding sources for the various bike network projects and programs.
“The plan doesn’t only look at where we build new facilities and how we can build safer facilities, it also looks at the programs that we need to encourage safe behavior by people in cars and people on bikes,” said Cathy Halka, the city’s project manager for the plan.
Halka said there had been a notable culture shift in residents desire to bike places since the initial plan was drafted in 1993.
People are wanting to get around the city by bike and this plan is an opportunity to see how we can accommodate this new and growing interest in biking and make it easier and safer to get where they need to go,” she said.
The city’s Planning and Development Department started work on the bike plan in March and are in phases two and three of a six-phase process.
The city hosted community meetings in May and June seeking public input and is encouraging community groups to organize meetings regarding the bike plan.
The next phases include formulating a draft of the plan and another round of public input.
A timeline of the 12-month project is available at www.houstonbikeplan.com.
The public may sign up for email updates on the website, too, Halka said.
“We’d like people to be involved so that this is a plan that makes people happy and address their needs,” she said.
“Public engagement will help us develop a plan that makes sense for people and that people will support not just now but when we move forward to actually building things or putting programs in place.”
The Energy Corridor District, the Harris County Improvement District No. 4, hosted a public meeting July 20 highlighting the Houston Bike Plan to area residents and business leaders. Attendees were invited to learn about the city’s plan and the district’s own efforts to establish a more connected biking network and to share their ideas on how to improve biking in Houston.
“The Energy Corridor District has done a lot of planning for bicycle facilities, as have other management districts who have completed similar work, and the Houston Bike Plan will be taking into account all of those existing plans as we develop the citywide network,” Halka said. “The bike plan itself is looking at a higher level citywide network whereas some management districts are drilling down into a little bit more detail for specific areas.”
The board of directors of the Energy Corridor District already approved an updated master plan outlining ideas for land use, infrastructure and street design, and mobility, which includes a local bicycle network.
The district shared the plan with the city’s bike plan staff and consultants, said Clark Martinson, the district’s general manager.
The Energy Corridor District includes more than 1,700 acres that extend along both sides of Interstate 10 from Kirkwood to the west of Barker Cypress and along Eldridge Parkway from north of I-10 to the south of Briar Forest.
The district’s plan outlines three different types of bicycle infrastructure: hike and bike trails, two-way bike lanes with traffic dividers and one-way bike lanes buffered from traffic.
Those include protected intersections for bicyclists at major thoroughfares, sidewalks and one-way separated bicycle lanes on Park Row, a two-way separated bike lane on Memorial Drive, one-way separated bike lanes on each side of Briar Forest, a bike path on Grisby Road connecting to Terry Hershey Park, and other amenities aiming to make the area more bike-friendly.
The district plan also includes a pedestrian and bicycle bridge over I-10 as a signature architectural element to serve as a gateway to the Energy Corridor District.
The bridge would connect the Addick’s Park and Ride at 14230 I-10 to the BP Energy Co. across the highway.
“We’d call it the I-10 Pedestrian Bicycle Bridge,” Martinson said.
In addition to impacting transportation and the environment by removing vehicles from congested streets, making the area more bike-friendly, he said, bicycling could have tremendous implications on how residents and workers interact with each other within the corridor.
Bicyclists, he said, might discover they can do more business riding bikes on trails to local restaurants or stores rather than getting in their cars and driving to the Galleria, Memorial City or City Center.
“It will encourage more local neighborhood business just because it will be closer to home,” Martinson said. “For people who live here, the idea is that you can hop on the bike and visit a friend, go to school, to your place of worship, the library or to exercise in the park.”
And that, he added, will change how people spend their time so that they may spend more time with their families, at home or in support of local businesses.
The management district has been working on improving the area’s biking needs since 2001. It has already partnered with Harris County Precinct 3 Commission Steve Radack to build 4 miles of hike and bike trails at Bush Park and to build 2 miles of trails connecting Terry Hershey Park to METRO’s Addicks Park and Ride. The district also is working with the transportation authority to change parking at the park and ride facility to include bike racks and to provide graphic information that tells bicyclists how to get to hike and bike trails.
The district also is working with the Texas Department of Transportation to modify the six intersections in the Energy Corridor on I-10 to put in protected intersections that will separate bicyclists and pedestrians when they cross streets, so they don’t have to get off their bikes and walk across.
“You’ll actually have a bike lane you can ride your bike at an intersection, and you’d have a pedestrian crosswalk to walk through,” Martinson said. “And at the corners where you are waiting for the light to change so you can cross the frontage or major thoroughfare there will be shade structures, possibly benches and landscaping and amenities.”
The district and TxDOT are funding the $3.5 million project. The district is spending $500,000, and the state transportation department is spending $3 million. The project will start in February, Martinson said.
Martinson said all three of the improvement districts in Houston’s Westside had initiated bicycle master plans.
“West Chase is selecting a consultant now to update theirs,” he said. “We just updated ours with our master plan. I believe Memorial City is about ready to finish their master plan. This is just bicycle master plans in addition to our other work.”
Houston Bike Plan’s project manager, Halka, said her department will look at each area to address the various typographical challenges each may present to the overall plan.
“In western parts of the city you may have larger streets with longer blocks and fewer intersections,” she said.
“If you look at the Montrose and Midtown area of Houston, you have smaller streets and some real opportunities for local connectivity.
“Those are two different environments, and we have to look at what the options are to connect and those solutions could be different in each area.”