Denton Trails Part 11: Bond Election — Make your voice heard

You’ve made it to the end! But what can you do to ensure your voice is heard on the future of our multimodal network? Read on to find out.

This is part eleven in the Denton Trails series, a series that thinks through what a low-stress multimodal transportation network would look like in Denton. It draws inspiration from other trail systems, proposes core principles we could use in developing our own system, and envisions several trail concepts and how they could form the core of a bike and walk portion of our upcoming mobility plan. Please join me as you walk, scoot, or ride through these musings:

Part 1: Why Trails?
Part 2: City Trails Inspiration
Part 3: Recreational Trails Inspiration
Part 4: Five Pillars of Trail Success
Part 5 Concept: Locust / UPRR Trail
Part 6 Concept: Pecan Creek Trail
Part 7 Concept: University Trails
Part 8: 35E Crossing Improvements
Part 9: Concept: Downtown Connectivity
Part 10: Mobility Plan Integration
Part 11: Bond Election — Make your voice heard

Proposition C: Land acquisition for parks

Proposition C on November’s ballot would approve $5 million of bond funding for “the acquisition of land and interests in land for parks”. This gives this and future councils flexibility to use it to acquire land for any type of parkland. The will of the residents, however, is fairly clear:

“Parks and Recreation Director, Gary Packan, stated that multiuse trails are the number one requested item for his department” — August 11 Friday Staff Report

This year, the parks department has established a matrix to score desirability of land that includes many factors. Some of the largest factors though, are suitability to trails, improving the 10-minute walk to a park coverage, and preserving trees and open space which often occur in riparian areas that can be excellent opportunities for future trails.

Proposition D: Public art

The Special Citizen’s Bond Advisory Committee recommended public art money be included within proposition C, which would have obligated that public art money to be used only for public art within city park land. As we saw in trail systems in northwest Arkansas and Xenia, Ohio, public art within trail systems can place art in locations where it gets appreciated by many members of the community. City Council chose to split this out into a separate Proposition D, because a separate proposition will allow our public art committee more latitude in where this public art money should be spent. Assuming this proposition passes, our citizen’s committee and City Council will be able to use this money where they see the best opportunities. Many of those could very well be along future high-comfort multi-use trail routes.

Benefits of Trails

• Drivers: By removing even a small number of cars on the road by people choosing to walk or ride a bike, congestion is improved leading to nonlinear improvements in travel times for drivers. If you take 1% of the cars off a congested roadway onto other modes of multimodal transportation, travel time improves for those drivers by greater than 1%. Everyone wins.
• Economic: Investments in multimodal infrastructure make it easier for additional areas to develop as walkable places like our downtown. These types of places are consistent with our long range Denton Plan 2030, and are also more productive land uses leading to higher value per acre. This reduces the upward pressure on tax rates for our residents and makes it easier for our city to fulfil its long-term obligations.
• Quality of life: Trails like these proposed are not only amenities that people enjoy using and increase their access to the natural landscape, but they are functional and allow people to freely choose the method of transportation they want to, rather than having that decided for them by the way our city is built.
• Environmental: Any city which passed a fracking ban and an aggressive renewable electricity plan obviously puts a high priority on environmental quality. By fulfilling our 2030 plan to see multimodal transportation expanded, we reduce the number of cars on the road and their associated emissions, which positively impacts our air quality. In addition to that, preservation of riparian areas ensures our tree canopy coverage will remain high in these areas.

But don’t take my word on these benefits. Watch this excellent interview of Brent Toderian about the benefits of a multimodal transportation network and related land use policies.

Could a high-comfort multimodal network come to fruition without the money in Proposition C? Perhaps. But it is more likely to happen sooner if this proposition passes.

Vote

On November 5, we the voters will decide the fate of Proposition C and Proposition D. Check out the city’s informational page, and then look up information on how and where to vote. Early voting starts October 21, so educate yourself, and then go vote.