Bike Accident Illustrates Need For Safer Biker/Pedestrian Options: If you’ve ever ridden a bike over one of the two viaducts that span the Trinity River and connect Oak Cliff to downtown, you know how incredibly scary it is. It just got scarier: Dallas Torres, 32, was struck by a car while riding his bike on the Jefferson Boulevard viaduct Saturday, breaking his neck. He remains at Baylor University Medical Center. Too bad we can’t fund those bike paths.
‘Dallas’ Looks To Capitalize on Recessionary Escapism: A flurry of news stories about the revival of the television show “Dallas” hit the inter-webs this weekend. This is all you need to know, via Larry Hagman: “Remember when ‘Dallas’ was really big, we were in a major recession,” he said. “People couldn’t afford to hire a babysitter and go out to dinner. So they had to stay in and watch something on TV, and that was us.”
Rick Perry Continues To Self-Destruct Presidential Hopes: Rick Perry believes that calling for the prosecution of legal adults serving in the marines who made a video of themselves urinating on Taliban corpses shows “disdain for the military.” Cue Zac.
13 comments
from the photos on the WFAA website it appears Torres was in the left hand lane on the viaduct. shouldn’t he have been in the far right hand lane? slower traffic keeps right?
The streets are for cars. Dallas has more pressing issues to worry about than bike lanes.
Yeah, Sport, like childhood and adult obesity, rising health care costs, quality of life, the ability to attract companies and industries to our city, education, air quality, and traffic – to name a few.
Do you know what would do wonders for the childhood and adult obesity, air quality, and traffic problems you mentioned? Biking! Still can’t figure out if your comment was serious.
And not to sound like a broken record, but spending money on an fancy Italian bridge when that money could have instead been spent on the safety of Dallas citizens… still a horrible idea.
PeterK, that bridge has feeder ramps that come in from the right. Riding in the righthand lane (as Dallas was doing) still puts the rider to the left of cars merging onto the bridge.
Tori is right. I’ve ridden on that bridge coming in from Oak Cliff, and it is pretty terrifying, even on a lazy Sunday. It’s a hard lane change for the biker, and it’s hard to see or anticipate a biker being there for a car.
We don’t need fancy bridges either. Fixing the potholes would be a nice place to start. Most folks and children who are obese, aren’t that way simply because Dallas doesn’t have bike lanes. Give me a break.
Prayers to Mr. Torres. I hope he makes a full recovery.
Actually. According to the Texas Drivers Handbook, a bicyclist can ride on either side of the road if it’s a one-way street. Besides, Mr. Torres is on the furthest left-lane because it’s actually the less dangerous lane getting to Downtown to OakCliff. I didn’t say safest lane because there is nothing safe about that intersection for either bicyclist or automobile.
Also, the Calatrava Bridge is actually Spanish.
Being one who drives across both bridges daily, there is no safe place for cyclists, much less those walking/running. If you’re on the right, you face the problem of being forced into a very high curb. The bigger problem is the lack of police presence to/from on this bridge. Just Friday night, heading downtown across the other viaduct, there was a group of 20-30’somethings with a Corvette convertible pointed the wrong way with its headlights facing oncoming traffic (nearly blinding me) so they could take a YouTube video of them smoking the car tires. Something needs to be done about overall safety on those bridges, not just bicycle lanes.
And what about the lanes for us Segway riders?
@peterk my brother was in the far right lane but when the car hit from the back, it threw him to the left!