Denton City Council discusses bike plan, holds public hearing

More public hearings will be held before the plan is voted on.

Photo by Andrew Williams

Members of the Denton City Council

The Denton City Council met Tuesday to discuss an update to the city’s proposed bike plan during an afternoon work session and later held a public hearing on the transmission line reconstruction in northeast Denton.

Jim Coulter, general manager of wastewater and streets for the city, said he was proud of the updated bike plan.

“We think we’ve got a really good bike plan coming forward,” Coulter said. “There are additional things we can do, but we’ve created a document that’s something the community can work with and will continue to grow into the future.”

Kevin St. Jacques, a senior transportation planner with Freese and Nichols, presented the updated plan, which sets an immediate goal of creating 35 miles of bike lanes in one to three years, and 48 miles in three to 10 years.

St. Jacques said there was room on existing roadways to reallocate space for bike and pedestrian lanes, which would help save money if the city decides to adopt the plan. The estimated cost for achieving the goal is between $600,000 and $1.2 million.

He said elements of the plan could immediately be put in place if approved by the city.

“It is a plan that is moving and has a lot of groundswell support,” St. Jacques said.

Recently, construction on Jagoe Street near UNT was finished, complete with wider sidewalks and bicycle signs to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians.

The new “sharrows” painted on the concrete on Jagoe, indicating shared bike and car road travel, could start popping up more around town if the bike plan is approved.

The plan remains several public hearings away from being voted on.

“It’s been a very important process to go through as well; think about bicycling in the community and what it means in Denton,” St. Jacques said.

Residents also spoke out during the public hearing on the planned reconstruction of an electric transmission line in northeast Denton.

The original planned route for the transmission line met resistance from residents whose homes could have been subject to eminent domain, causing Denton Municipal Electric to suggest new routes and hold repeated public hearings.

David Zoltner, whose home was in the path of the first route proposed by the DME over the summer, said he supported DME’s newest preferred route but expressed anger at how it had conducted itself initially in June.

“DME violated almost every industry routing standard by going straight to a right-of-way contract without public involvement last June,” Zoltner said.

He also compared his neighborhood’s reaction that prompted the DME to find a new route to “rebellion” rather than “citizen input.”

Zoltner commended the DME for compromising with neighborhood residents since then, but said Denton City Hall had a massive institutional problem related to its handling of the affair in June.

Other residents in the area affected by the transmission line asked for more detailed maps of the planned routes, and Mayor Mark Burroughs encouraged them to submit questions so the city could answer them in a timely fashion.

The City Council will hold another public hearing in November before the final transmission line route is voted on.