True to his word, Jason Roberts along with the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce Alternative Transportation Committee are hosting Bikefaire this Sunday in Bishop Arts District, noon to 4 p.m., because $1,500 was raised for new bike racks around North Oak Cliff businesses.
The initiative and the celebratory party are getting quite a bit of press, both from traditional media like the DMN and on blogs like Cycle Dallas, where Roberts (as his blogger pseudonym mannytmoto) has a long and interesting exchange with PM Summer, the City of Dallas Bike Coordinator. Summer calls Roberts and others "neo-urban hipsters" and states:
"[They] are at once proud of Oak Cliff and desirous that it be something else. That something is Portland, the new ‘Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom’ of American communities (where the poor are shipped out of town, and federal subsidized housing is provided for liberal arts majors working at Starbucks … I’m not making this up), but with 1/10 the population density, and 1/4 the per capita income. They want bike lanes, street cars, brew pubs, and coffee shops. I’m with ’em 3/4’s of the way, although the economic reality of what drives the objects of their desires seems a little distant."
Roberts replies that "this response is beyond something I would fathom from a professional," and then continues to make his argument, to which Summer responds tit for tat. It’s an interesting read.
Also, Roberts has started another blog, Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, and continues the debate with viewpoints from Portland’s bike coordinator, Roger Geller.
