Active transportation can be hard to come by, especially in a metropolitan area as spread out as North Texas. But with the regional Veloweb, a 400-mile bike trail system being developed across the region, that could soon change.
“As the North Texas regions grow,” says Dr. Shima Hamidi, assistant professor of Urban Planning and director of the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, “It is critical for communities to provide functional and accessible transportation alternatives. Bike facilities offer the choice of healthy and active transportation that produces no emissions and reduces automobile congestion. Further, integrating the on-street bike facilities with the off-street trail network and the regional Veloweb offers opportunity for connecting families to schools, shopping and recreation, employees to a means of low-cost and healthy commuting, and everyone to a region-wide, 1,728-mile ‘interstate’ bike network.”
Hamidi has been working with the North Central Texas Council of Governments as part of the ongoing University Partnership Program to develop the Grand Prairie Bike Plan, designed to provide the city with a map identifying locations to implement a system of on-street bicycle facilities. These will connect with the Veloweb and Grand Prairie’s off-street bike trails.
To learn more about the Veloweb and other innovations in transportation across North Texas, read the latest issue of NTX Magazine here.
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