According to Bike Score’s heat map, the White Rock area is one of the few places that is “bikeable.” (photo from walkscore.com)
Around this time last year, Advocate editor Keri Mitchell told us about Walk Score, a website that rates how walkable a city is based on how far residents must go to reach grocery stores, entertainment, parks and other amenities. Dallas was rated “somewhat” walkable with a score of 47 (out of 100), classifying our city as “car dependent.”
The folks at the Seattle-based company recently expanded the site to include Bike Score, which uses a similar algorithm to rate a city’s bikeability, based on factors like terrain, bike lanes and destinations. Dallas is rated, you guessed it, “somewhat bikeable” with a score of 41, and most of Lakewood and East Dallas ranks under 50.
However, a closer look at the heat map of White Rock area reveals a score of 58, making it “bikeable,” although not a “biker’s paradise.” It helps that we have the hike and bike trail and White Rock Lake – those areas are bright yellow. But if you look at the number of actual bike commuters, it’s almost nonexistent. Beet red.
We’ve done a lot of reporting on Dallas’ effort to become more bike-friendly, particularly in our March 2012 cover story. The ambitious Dallas Bike Plan is still trucking along in its 10-year plan with tweaks from council members (and, of course, there’s always the issue of cost). At a recent city council meeting, our departing councilwoman Angela Hunt reminded everyone that we still have a long way to go.
In the meantime, let’s take a look back at our video from last year, interviewing several neighborhood bike enthusiasts about how they’re co-existing with motorists out there on the roads today.
