Jason Roberts's "Largest Undertaking" Yet: A Trail From Oak Cliff to North Dallas. Say What?

A couple of weeks back, in his column for the paper version of Unfair Park, Jim wrote about Scott Griggs and Angela Hunt's desire to get the Trinity River Corridor Project back on track with projects "done quickly, cheaply and on a human scale." You know who's also involved? Ding, ding and ding: Jason Roberts, who, fresh off the Better Ross Ave. experiment, is working with the Dallas Off-Road Bicycle Association, the Trinity Trust, Groundwork Dallas, the city's Park and Rec department and anyone else interested in creating a trail that'll more or less go from Bishop Arts District to ... Mockingbird.

Oh -- and he expects to have it up and running, as it were, within 90 days.

"We have to run through a few traps -- like, staying out of anything that triggers anything that involves the Corps, which we can do," he says. But, long story short: He wants to establish a trail that connects Bishop Arts with the Trinity River levees, and another that links the Katy Trail with the levees.

"And 90 days may be too ambitious, but I think we can pull it off," he says. "It'd be a pretty massive undertaking, but we've been talking to a bunch of different folks, and I think we have all the pieces in place. At this point it's making sure we have a solid plan in place. It depends on which route we select, but we're working closely with Groundwork Dallas and the Trinity Trust and the on-streets folks to make sure we fulfill pieces of the Dallas Bike Plan. But this would be huge, our largest undertaking to date."

Roberts hopes to get the trail open in time for Dallas's first-ever ciclovía, which will be funded with a $5,000 grant from Bikes Belong, as Roberts just announced on Bike Friendly Oak Cliff. That money, says Roberts, will go toward "the first car-free streets day in Dallas." Where he's going, you don't need roads. Just trails.