{"id":21101,"date":"2017-04-19T03:27:30","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T03:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21101"},"modified":"2017-04-19T03:27:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T03:27:30","slug":"will-the-city-ever-finish-its-bike-trail-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21101","title":{"rendered":"Will the city ever finish its bike-trail network?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Amarillo parks officials some years ago drafted a plan to create a citywide network of bicycle paths.<\/p>\n

The network’s aim was to connect every corner of the city, enabling residents to get from any point in Amarillo aboard a bicycle. The city Parks and Recreation Department set aside some bike lanes. I’ve seen a few of them near my neighborhood. The trouble is, though, is that they don’t seem to go anywhere.<\/p>\n

The then-parks director, Larry Offerdahl, retired. Rod Tweet succeeded him. I spoke once with Tweet while on assignment for KFDA-NewsChannel 10, talked to him about the future of the bike paths and the network. I recall him assuring me that it would get finished — eventually.<\/p>\n

I don’t know when “eventually” will arrive, but I feel as though it’s time to offer this hope for the City Council campaign that is drawing to a close. The hope is that the candidates for all five council seats will pledge to make the bike network a greater priority than it has been for the past several years.<\/p>\n

City voters rejected a parks improvement referendum in 2016, telling the city they didn’t want to spend money to improve the park and recreation offerings.<\/p>\n

I consider the bike trails a seriously valuable asset to the city’s quality of life. My wish for years has been that the city could lure people out of the cars and allow them to ride non-motorist transport vehicles — such as bicycles — to wherever they need to go.<\/p>\n

I recognize our love affair with motor vehicles. My wife and I own two of them: one of them — a hybrid — primarily for city use, the other primarily for use as a vehicle to tow our fifth wheel RV.<\/p>\n

Amarillo started work on this bicycle network. Tweet and Offerdahl both made its aim crystal clear: They intended to provide a safe and enjoyable way for bicyclists get anywhere<\/em> in Amarillo.<\/p>\n

As near as I can tell, the network isn’t finished. It’s far from finished. I believe there needs to be a serious push from the City Council to get the job done.<\/p>\n\n

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Amarillo parks officials some years ago drafted a plan to create a citywide network of bicycle paths. The network’s aim was to connect every corner of the city, enabling residents to get from any point in Amarillo aboard a bicycle. The city Parks and Recreation Department set aside some bike lanes. I’ve seen a few … Continue reading Will the city ever finish its bike-trail network?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[288,290,7068,7069],"class_list":["post-21101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-amarillo-pard","tag-bicycle-paths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21103,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21101\/revisions\/21103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}