Tough Road Ahead for Dallas Bikeshare

A bikeshare program in Downtown Dallas is a non-starter unless it's entirely funded by private money.

1 minute read

June 14, 2016, 9:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Robert Wilonsky reports on the challenges facing the effort to bring bikeshare to Downtown Dallas—most of which have to do with funding.

The Dallas City Council’s Transportation and Trinity River Project Committee was told Monday afternoon it will cost around $6.1 million to kick-start a bike share program in and around downtown, with spokes reaching all the way to Deep Ellum, The Cedars, the Design District, Victory Park and Uptown.

Downtown Dallas Inc. has spent two years trying to score sponsorships to raise the bulk of those funds, but so far to no avail. Opposing any other route to funding a bikeshare program is Dallas City Councilmember Sandy Grayson, who insists the program must not spend any public money in construction or maintenance and operation.

There is a bikeshare program in Dallas, of sorts, at Fair Park, "[b]ut it it’s seldom used, and it’s not meant to go outside Fair Park’s gates." Meanwhile, according to Wilonsky, every other major city in Texas has a bikeshare program, "including El Paso."

Monday, June 13, 2016 in The Dallas Morning News

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