Ellis puts wheels in motion with $10M for bike-lane efforts
County commissioner rolls out plan to build more protected trails
Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis on Monday announced a one-year $10 million commitment to bicycling projects in Houston, in the hopes of jump-starting the city’s transformation into a bikefriendly place.
“Working together, we can better leverage scarce resources from governmental entities and the private sector and share our collective expertise to serve the people in this region,” Ellis said.
A year after Houston leaders approved an ambitious plan for hundreds of miles of protected bike trails, little progress has been made, something cycling supporters said Ellis’ pledge will change. Officials estimated the money would build at least 50 miles of protected bike lanes considered crucial to providing usable bike access to neighborhoods and jobs.
“This really gives us a boost we needed,” said Houston Planning Director Patrick Walsh .
The money, along with city funds from its capital improvement plan, will go toward repainting bike lanes, developing safer intersections and other improvements aimed at making riding a bike in Houston easier and safer.
“We cannot afford any more fatalities and injuries,” said Mayor Sylvester Turner.
Six cyclists were killed and 37 seriously injured on city streets last year.
Projects will be chosen for their ability to start soon. Ellis stressed officials have one year to spend the money he committed, and any unspent funds will return to other priorities in his precinct.
Turner said the funding, along with $1.1 million the city
plans to spend in each of the next five years, will act as seed money for upcoming projects, including planned bike lanes along Austin and Caroline streets and new space for cyclists along Hardy and Elysian streets on the city’s Near Northside.
The announcement was held at the downtown bike lane that Houston Public Works built along Lamar Street to connect the east and west sides of the central business district and nearby trails. Ellis and others rode along the bike lane to the event, citing it as the kind of amenity to which all Houstonians should have access.
“More and more people will be riding when they believe it is safe to do so,” said John Long, executive director of BikeHouston, which encourages city development of bike amenities.
Slow progress
Plans to improve safety and people’s access to safe lanes were a pillar of the bike master plan that City Council passed in March 2017. The plan calls for $550 million in projects over 30 years, creating 1,800 miles of safe pathways. The city currently has less than 600 miles of trails and on-street lanes, but only half that would be considered high-quality and attractive to riders, a situation cycling supporters say stymies more robust bike use.
“Whatever number of bike riders there are out on the street right now, you can multiply that by 10 or even 20 if they had protected bike lanes and somewhere safe to ride,” Long said. Others question the demand. “If people want to ride, there are plenty of places. Look what they’ve done along the bayous,” said Stuart Morrow, 56, who works downtown and lives in Tanglewood.
Morrow called many of the cycling efforts unnecessary, saying local officials are bowing to a “loud minority” interested in bike riding.
Though officials have said improving bike access is a priority, progress has been slow. Efforts to add lanes along some streets have stalled as other priorities dominated dollars and attention, notably flood control.
Turner said city officials are well-aware cyclists are demanding improvements
“What has been crippling us is the infrastructure is not there,” he said.
As a result, the city remains well behind its peers or even behind where many hoped it would be in terms of cycling amenities. BikeHouston, which held an annual summit Monday evening, also released its 2017 report card earlier in the day, giving Houston a C-minus for its efforts.
‘It’s rolling’
Across a wide range of criteria, the group said the bike plan has not led to tangible progress. The city spent zero on bicycling efforts in 2017, advocates noted, while dedicating the $1.1 million Turner championed for fiscal 2018. It also took nearly a year for City Council to appoint members to an advisory committee called for in the bicycle plan.
BikeHouston did give high marks to education and enforcement campaigns related to Houston’s safe passing law for motorists, even though the report card showed progress has not materialized from promises. Long, however, said he remains a realist, noting it will take time.
“A year from now, that report card will look very very different, I suspect,” he said, noting the $10 million from Ellis could be stretched farther than 50 miles. “Clearly it has taken a whole year to get things rolling at all, but it is rolling.”