Would you believe San Antonio is #1? Or that Dallas ranks #12 out of 15? And that neither New York nor California, where the battles over gay marriage have raged the most, has any cities on the list?
Professor Richard Florida compiled it for The Atlantic. Jump for the list.
Jason Roberts of Bike Friendly Oak Cliff (and just about everything else) just posted news of the grant, from Bikes Belong, on BFOC’s Facebook page. And this video below, if you’re not sure what a ciclovia is.
I really dislike the sun. I only go outside from 9 p.m. to midnight in the months of June, July, and August. So when I signed up to help with the Build a Better Boulevard project and agreed to spend at least 12 hours in the sun (half of that doing manual labor), I knew I was in for trouble.
Though I got a very painful sunburn (trust me, I did put on sunscreen and reapplied multiple times), I wouldn’t trade yesterday for anything. Jump to find out why or check out the video by Robbie Curtis.
We had a discussion the other day about whether or not Jason Roberts ever sleeps. He’s in a band, he started Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, he is bringing the streetcar to Oak Cliff, he’s helped start a restaurant, he gives talks, he has kids and a wife, and until this year, he had a full-time job. One of his latest and greatest initiatives is the Better Block Project. Up until now, Roberts and his crew have been transforming a couple blocks. But this weekend, they’re doing something on a much grander scale. It’s called the 72 Hour Challenge. We’re a little more than 11 hours into those 72 hours.
The idea behind the challenge is to give Dallas a grand boulevard. The boulevard will stretch from Pavillion to North Hawkins along Ross. There will be food trucks, bands, bike lanes, a Las Ramblas market, bus stops, and pop-up retail. It’s from 11-4 this Sunday. And there are a lot of organizations pulling together to transform this street in just a few hours. We have been lucky enough to be paired with La Terra Studio, MasonBaronet, and Dallas Engaged Professionals. We’ll be at Routh and Ross. Come on Sunday to see what a better bus stop and pop-up retail area can look like. We have plans for shade and water guns to help keep you cool. For a sneak peek of what we’re working on, jump (and then click on the images to enlarge them). And if you happen to have an umbrella or plants we could maybe borrow for a few hours on Sunday, let me know.
Why does Schutze take his own sometimes-perfectly-reasonable arguments and twist them into a pretzel? Because, like the Sean Hannitys and Rachel Maddows of Fox News and MSNBC, Schutze is an ideologue, and if something doesn’t fit into his narrow worldview, he has to contort it until it does. From his latest column:
In the August 2009 edition, publisher Wick Allison urged readers to ignore growing concerns of government engineers that the inside-the-levees route might be hugely expensive and also dangerous because of its effect on flood safety.
Oh, really? Here’s the column in question. You will note it doesn’t even mention the toll road. It is about the Trinity project as a whole. The column’s point is summed up in the last paragraph:
Mayor Tom Leppert and the current City Council need to take a leaf from Laura Miller’s notebook. Don’t believe a word the engineers tell you. Don’t accept any of their assumptions. They paved over this city once, and given the opportunity, they will do it again.
Alas, we now know that Leppert and the City Council did accept the engineers’ assumptions. On the toll road specifically, the road engineers, the flood-control engineers, and the city engineers all said the Corps would eventually come around.
Schutze, of course, deliberately misreads the column because it doesn’t fit his thesis. He then misinterprets it — filling in his own words — to make it fit. He has used the same trick over and over again his entire career as a columnist. Which leads me to wonder why anyone ever returns his phone calls — when he bothers to make them.
I’m a huge Mavs fan, going back to the glory days of Rolando, Aguirre, and Harper. That said, I wouldn’t go anywhere near the parade end of downtown today. I honestly don’t understand why anyone would. When I try to list the pros and cons, I come up with plenty of cons: the heat, the crowds, the potential for violence. What’s a pro? Getting to see Dirk Nowitzki in person? I can buy a $2 ticket to a Mavs game next season and get that done in the comfort of an air-conditioned arena.
Last night after your Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championship, fans were in the mood to celebrate. Understandably. A few thousand people wound up in Victory Plaza — excuse me, AT&T Victory Plaza — where Channel 8 was broadcasting live. The TV cameras and the big video boards in the plaza drew revelers like a porch light attracts moths. Which is exactly as it should be. So, of course the cops showed up on horseback to shut down the celebration — the celebration taking place in VICTORY PLAZA.
Seriously?
Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy tweeted last night: “Difference in Dallas and Fort Worth: When a huge crowd gathers in Dallas they send more cops. In Fort Worth they send more beer vendors.”
Someone needs to tell the cops now that there will be a parade so that they don’t try to shut it down early, before it reaches its destination.
Maybe you’ve already seen this elsewhere. Now see it here.
Living Plaza – Dallas, TX from Aaron Garcia on Vimeo.
