Dedicated, Separated, Bike Lane Coming To Downtown!

Houston's Downtown area is going to get a seperated bike lane.  Sometime in October a separated bike lane will be installed on Lamar St.  This new bike lane will connect the Buffalo Bayou Bike Trail to Discovery Green. You can read about the project here Chronicle Article.

What makes this really exiting is that there is currently work going on to connect the four mile Columbia Tap Trail to Discovery Green.  This will make a 7+ mile separated urban path.

No Bikes Allowed At Taxpayer Funded Skatepark

Today Houston opened a new skatepark.  Not just a skatepark but the largest skatepark in the USA.  Here is the description of the skate park from the Greenspoint Redevelopment agency's web site

With 72,000 square feet of skate surface, the skate park will cater to the young and young-at-heart. The unique design includes a world-class competition-scale Texas bowl featuring a full pipe, 12-foot vert ramp, 10-foot bowl, banked walls and speed hips, plus a couple of backyard-style pools and three beginner/intermediate/advanced flow bowls.  A section designed to emulate the street-skating experience will have ledges, rails, benches, banks, quarter pipes and stair obstacles, providing fun and creative challenge for skaters of all levels and interests.

Sounds great and is an exciting edition to Houston right?  Except they have decided that BMX riders are not allowed to use the park.   Of course skateparks all over the country are shared by bikers and skateboarders.  Seems to me folks at the Greenspoint Redevelopment Agency took a cool idea and failed to implement it with any understanding of what they were building.

Today at the skateparks opening there were protesters. A great first step in letting the powers that be know they should reconsider the policy.  To continue and voice displeasure with the policy, there are a few folks who should be contacted.  Just 4 emails needed: 

1. The park was built by the Greenspoint Redevelopment Agency. The Executive Director is Sally Bradford   
2.  The park will be operated by the Greenspoint Agency and the Greenspoint Agency Parks Manager is Treena Dockery. 
3. The City of Houston Parks Board approved the park and the  Executive Director is Roksan Okan-Vick
4.  Lastly, our Mayor who I think is pretty good about this stuff Anise Parker 

Here is the complete contact info. 

Sally Bradford
Executive Director
16800 Greenspoint Park Drive
Suite 160 South
Houston, TX 77060 

sbradford@greenspoint.org

281-877-9952

Treena Dockery
Parks & Recreation Manager 
281-874-2146
tdockery@greenspoint.org


Roksan Okan-Vick   
(713) 942-8500  
Roksan@houstonparksboard.org

Mayor Annise D. Parker
City of Houston
P.O. Box 1562 Houston, TX 77251
Phone: 3-1-1, or 713.837.0311
Email: mayor@houstontx.gov  

Roksan

Oka

Bike Houston Is Hiring

Bike Houston, the bicycle advocacy group in Houston, is hiring.  You can see the listings here Bike Houston  They are looking for:

• Development Director
• Director of Gov & Community Affairs
• Marketing Associate

They are also looking to fill out their board of directors.

Getting paid to work on making a better community for bicyclists sounds great to me. 

Memorial Park Criterium

Another Houston criterium is the Memorial Park Criterium.  This series runs every Wednesday from early June through the end of August.  For 2014 the exact dates are June 4th to August 27th 2014.  The Bike Barn puts on the race and a portion of the proceeds go to the Memorial Park Conservancy.  You can find the most current updates on the races Facebook Page.  The race is run at the Memorial Park Picnic Loop (link to Google Maps)



Once again the best sound around:

Each week's race is sponsored by some major sponsors: Trek, Specialized, Oakley, Michelob Water, Chico's Bail Bonds, etc.  Prizes are awarded to top three finishers in each category and there is an overall series award as well.

I like to grab dinner to go and have a picnic by the races.  Then when we are done eating and my boys get bored of watching bikes go by we hike the great trails Memorial Park has.

Some photos from the week 3 race:

Sponsor Tent and Sign Ups

Sponsor Tent and Sign Ups

Cat 3 & 4 Racers

Cat 3 & 4 Racers