News Cycle

Plano rides high on new survey of best U.S. cities for bicyclists

Plano is among the top cities for cycling.

Photo courtesy of Hill Country Galleria

While the pandemic continues to limit much of how people live, the Dallas area's abundance of trails have managed to keep things wide open for cyclists. This element and more, according to a new study by SmartAsset, is why one Dallas 'burb — Plano — is one of the top 25 most bike-friendly cities in the nation.

In order to designate which cities in the country are the most bike-friendly, SmartAsset examined 100 of the largest cities via the following five metrics:

Bike score. This is a measure of how suitable a city is for biking on a scale of 0 to 100. Data comes from walkscore.com.
Percentage of commuters who bike to work. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2018 1-year American Community Survey.
Bicyclist fatalities per 100,000 residents. Data comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Motor Vehicle Crash Data Querying and Reporting and is for the five-year period from 2014-2018. This figure is measured at the county level.
Miles of protected bike lanes. Data comes from PeopleForBikes.org.
Income after housing costs. This is the median household income minus median annual housing costs. Data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2018 1-Year American Community Survey.

Each city in the study was ranked for each metric, with the bike score and five-year bicyclists fatalities per 100,000 residents receiving a double weight, and then they were assigned an overall score. A zero went to cities that weren’t particularly bike-friendly, and a 100 went to the best of the bunch.

Plano rode into the No. 17 spot with an overall score of of 62.26. Only 0.4 percent of its residents bike to work and there are zero miles of protected bike lanes, but Plano has a low fatalities score (.60) and the “income after housing costs” metric is the second highest in the study at $74,976. (San Francisco ranks No. 1 with $87,728.)

Austin tied with Plano at No. 17 in the study’s rankings. Its 19.1 miles of protected bike lanes dwarfed that of Portland, Oregon (5.3 miles) — the one city that scored a 100 in the study, earning the top spot — but it ranked much lower than its Pacific Northwestern companion when it came to how suitable the city is for biking (54.0 to 82.4), the percentage of commuters who bike to work (1.4 percent to Portland's 5.3 percent) and the bicyclists fatalities per 100,000 residents (1.04 to .48).

Plano came in at one point higher than Austin when measured on how suitable the city is for biking.

No other Texas cities made the list.

Plano and Austin may not yet be operating at the bike-friendly heights of the top cities in the study — Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis; Seattle; St. Paul; and Boston round out the top five — but you can definitely hop on your bike and take to both city’s roads with confidence.

Silo News

Carrollton is preparing to give its signature silos a makeover

dallas.culturemap.com

Downtown Carrollton silos

The city of Carrollton is giving one of its landmarks a big makeover: The historic Downtown Silos at 1003 4th Ave. are about to receive a new design — part of a plan to make Downtown Carrollton more vibrant.

The silos, which were originally built in 1950 for Blanton Grain Company, have come to serve as a key component of Carrollton's skyline.

The 110-foot-tall grain storage tower was constructed as part of the family-owned grain and feed business founded by L.F. Blanton in 1931 in Carrollton. It served as a landmark and storage facility for grain and feed products shipped worldwide via the adjacent railroad.

The tower was designated Historic by Carrollton City Council December 7, 2010, stating the Silos as a prominent City landmark and a historical reminder of Carrollton's agricultural heritage and significant role in the community's economic growth.

The City’s Capital Improvement Projects Division is preparing to repaint the Downtown Silos and provide a fresh design that will complement the ongoing Downtown Master Plan to further the City of Carrollton as a sustainable and vibrant community.

The new design has yet to be revealed. According to City of Carrollton marketing specialist Mary Hazuda, the design will be revealed each day as the artist progresses.

"We’re purposefully letting the reveal happen slowly for folks to enjoy the progress each day," Hazuda says.

The prep work has already begun, and the existing mural is currently being stripped. The structure will be prepped and primed for the artist to begin the art proper in mid to late April. They're hoping to have a completed project in early June.

The current design, consisting of a "Downtown Carrollton Station" sign on the side of the silos, as well as a Visit Historic Downtown Square sign on the square turret that sits atop the silos, have been in place since August 2007. Those who are attached to the current design would be wise to capture an image before they disappear.

In conjunction with Carrollton’s Downtown Mural Master Plan initiative, Carrollton's City Council formed a special arts committee to work with Articulation Art, LLC. Council and the committee are in the process of reviewing proposals and choosing the final mural design as we speak.

Funding for the project was initially proposed to City Council in March 2024, and the project was later approved in August.

The project will support City Council’s strategic objectives and vision of building a community that families and businesses want to call home by providing a refreshed visual and branding feature.

The equipment on the east side related to the former rock-climbing venture that previously occupied the Silos will be removed and the east side will then be bid separately to accommodate a different painting schedule.

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