Get your bikes, hikes, and anything else you might need to conquer the 2.2 mile Northaven Trail ready. The project, which was introduced as part of 2006 bond package, officially kicks off its construction with a groundbreaking on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. behind Dealey Montessori.

City officials and representatives from the Friends of Northaven Trail will be on hand to answer questions and dole out high-fives. Actual dirt shoveling will follow shortly, I’m told, and the trail should be completed in early months of 2012.

Jennifer Bryarly, organization president, and Book Marks manager Alexandra Burns.

A tip of the hat to the Preston Hollow Early Childhood PTA for its generous $6,000 donation to the Preston Royal Branch Library, Book Marks Library at NorthPark, and the Preston Hollow Park Project. The magnanimous moms contributed a bench and cold hard cash to the park and library, respectively. For the full press release, go to the jump Read More…

If you already have a family member with four paws or if you’d like to have one, head over to Preston Hollow Park at the corner of Park Lane and Thackery on Saturday for pet-friendly activities from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Councilwomen Ann Margolin and Linda Koop will be there with dogs in tow, and Dallas Animal Services and Rescue Partners will have adorable pups for adoption. Other perks include low-cost microchipping, and a free T-shirt with every adoption. For more information, go here.

Well, it’s finally here. Super Bowl week has arrived in North Texas.

The media headquarters for the big game is the Sheraton in downtown Dallas. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from our lovely office.

I thought you’d like to check out this photo from outside the hotel. Pretty cool stuff.

Despite those who have said otherwise at town hall meetings, Preston Hollow councilwomen Linda Koop (District 11) and Ann Margolin (District 13) have found evidence that most residents are not interested in raising the property tax rate.

Margolin conducted a telephone poll to 10,000 households with a member who voted in last year’s city council election. Of the 1,700 respondents, 88 percent did not wish to raise taxes.

Koop said she had no plans to poll her constituents, as she feels she can already gauge their opinion without one.

“90 percent of the calls my office receives are asking us not to raise taxes,” she said.

Koop and Margolin were part of a group of council members who proposed a plan yesterday with Mayor Tom Leppert that would restore many city services without raising taxes. The plan restores hours and services at recreation centers  and contributes an additional $700,000 in funding to city libraries, all without adding a cent to the property tax rate.

Of course, it does call for $1 million from the city’s emergency reserve fund, an increase in parking meter fees, and reduced mowing of city medians, among other cost-saving measures.

The money’s got to come from somewhere. How do you suggest the city handles the budget shortfall?

Double-click for an enlarged photo of the expansion

Good news for Dallas cyclists: Plans to expand the Northaven Trail from Preston Road to Valley Dale are moving forward. La Terra Studio, the Dallas-based architectural firm that is designing the trail, said they hope to have all the construction documents finished by the end of the year. At a public meeting with the Parks & Rec Department and the City of Dallas on Tuesday evening, CEO Michael Black said that ideally, a year from now the 2.2 mile trail will be usable.

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Now you can access master plans for bike trails, learn about guidelines for multi-use trails and virtually congregate with fellow community bikers from the comfort of everyone’s favorite social-networking site. Bike Friendly North Dallas is a support organization dedicated to designing and implementing “complete streets,” or roadways that accommodate safe travel for all users.

Group founder Bob Ikel is excited about journeying to this new frontier. “I sense a groundswell here,” he said. Ikel would like to see the number of fans, which is currently about 30, reach 500-1,000. “There are a lot of people in my Rolodex who are a part of this story,” he said. “It’s not a one-man show.”

To find the group on facebook, search BFND. You can also check out their website.

Click, then click again to get a zoom-able picture.

Speaking of Il Cane Rosso and the Friends of the Northaven Trail fundraiser last Thursday, there was a map posted on the restaurant wall from an aerial survey of the Oncor easement through which the trail will run, as well as a tentative route for the pathway.

Kris Brown, a principal at La Terra Studio, the firm designing the trail, sends along the very ilongated image, sans conceptual trail drawing since they aren’t quite sure yet which 12-foot swath of the easement the trail will cover. In fact, as I write this, they are seeking comments on where exactly the rail should go. The map posted at the fundraiser was printed on butcher paper with plenty of white space, and folks were strongly encouraged to put in there two cents. Things like “The trail should most definitely go right beside my fence right here,” or “Please, please avoid this here spot.”

If you have any thoughts, pass them along to project manager Rich Govlik, rgovlik@parkandrec.us. (FYI, he is not a city employee, but his firm, Park & Rec, was contracted by the city to handle exactly half of the 2006 bond program, which the city didn’t have the manpower to administer, he told me).

In an earlier (and much more bloated) post, I mentioned a get-together this evening at City Hall. You should still g0 to that. But you should also check out this site, which allows you to map favorite routes, point out problem areas, and comment on things posted by others, all from your chosen location. Fun Stuff.

Back in high school, on boring summer days and weekends, I would grab my trusty Gary Fisher mountain bike and haul butt for downtown from the parents’ north-of-635 abode. I won’t go into the nitty gritty details of the route, but it involved going south on St. Michaels/Boedeker Drive and hurdling helmetless through the usually-red light at Northwest Highway and into the Park Cities after nearly getting flattened and often getting cursed at by swerving motorists in their Lexus and Mercedes SUVs.

That whole nearly-getting-myself-killed thing was fun back in the day, but I have a kid now and understand that most (all?) reasonable people prefer not to take the death-by-bicycle route. Which would make Bob Ikel a reasonable person.

Ikel, an architect by trade, has been trying to make streets safe for cyclists for several years, Boedeker in particular. He’s been working with the city (and county and the North Texas County of Governments and DART) on an overhaul of the Dallas Bike Plan. He is also the founder of Bike Friendly North Dallas, which is dedicated to building easily bikeable streets (with bike lanes) in the area. Ikel is especially pushing for the establishment of bike lanes to link NorthPark Center with the White Rock Trail (the tentatively named C-Trail) and one that will run along Boedeker (the N-Trail) and link with a growing bike system in the Park Cities. The Windsor Park resident is also an all-around interesting guy who I will write about eventually once the vision for a bike plan in North Dallas becomes a little clearer.

All of which is an incredibly long-winded way of getting to the point that Dallas is hosting a meeting at 5 p.m. this evening at City Hall. They want to know what you want to see in a bike plan. Chances are, there will be a lot of Oak Cliff types in the crowd but, if I know Ikel, he’ll get his two cents in and probably a bit more. So, if you’re interested, pedal (or drive) down to City Hall tonight. I won’t be able to make it as I’ve been in sunny Florida for four days learning how to be a journalist, leaving the wife handling the incredibly energetic 10-month-old alone and me doing penance. But Oak Cliff People colleague Josh Hixson should be there and can fill me (and you) on what the Bike Plan could look like for Preston Hollow.