6 April 23 - 29, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents addition of another streetcar track, the Morning News reported. The council member often cycles on the Jefferson Viaduct’s bike lane, he said, which can be dangerous given the vehicle traffic and the lack of a significant barrier. “It’s harrowing getting across that bridge, across Jefferson Viaduct. It’s scary taking children through downtown on the streets,” West said. “I went on a 25-mile bike ride over to White Rock Lake and then down the Katy Trail over the weekend. And the most dangerous part of going into downtown was going over the Jefferson Bridge.” In 2025, the council approved the first update to the city’s bike plan in 14 years. At the time, the city had around 204 miles of bike paths, many of which are unprotected along busy traffic routes. Dallas is also far behind cities like Austin and San Antonio, which has over 600 miles of bike lanes. West has been vocal in his calls for safer streets and fewer pedestrian and cyclist injuries. There have been two fatal collisions in- volving cyclists and 13 involving pedestrians in 2026, according to the city’s Vision Zero Plan dashboard. Whatever the path forward is, traffic from the Jefferson bridge will be diverted onto Houston during construction. Pedes- trians and bicyclists will be rerouted along Beckley Avenue, West said, adding signifi- cant travel time to their routes downtown. He still doesn’t have enough data to rec- ommend a path forward, he said, and will communicate with residents as the process unfolds. “For cars. It becomes a trade-off… This affects me personally, just like it does a lot of neighbors,” he said. “I use it at least once a day. And we’ve got to be thoughtful of peo- ple making their daily commute via car to downtown and back, or taking kids to the Montessori school over there and back each day. And a big part of that is understanding how this configuration that’s being pro- posed by city staff at Hotel Street will add to their commute at the end of the day.” Peddling Forward Oak Cliff is home to Dallas’ first dedicated bike lane on Bishop Avenue. That’s some- thing cyclist advocate Jonathan Braddick, a board member of the Dallas Bicycle Coali- tion and Oak Cliff resident since 2006, is proud of. He’s supportive of the proposed changes and said that the coalition won’t support any changes to cycling access as proposed by staff and the study. While he knows traffic will be impacted with construction, Bradd- ick said car commuters will adjust. “There’s obviously going to be more traf- fic on Houston, but what will happen again, people will find alternative routes,” he said. “They’ll adjust to the traffic pattern for the temporary closure, just like anywhere else it happens.” He said his main question on the plan cen- ters around how cycling routes will be di- verted during that time and “urges the city to release that information as soon as possible so we can clear up any kind of confusion.” Overall, the proposed change feels like a logical next step for him. “We feel like this is a natural progression of these bridges,” he said. “And making sure that you’re not removing vehicular traffic, you’re shifting vehicular traffic, and you’re separating it, and that’s ultimately the best practice when it comes to planning for mul- timodal transportation.” On the other hand, Barr, still vehemently opposed to the plan, said it won’t just hurt his neighborhood. “It’s not only important to Oak Cliff; it’s very important to the people downtown,” he said. “I buy my groceries at Whole Foods and Tom Thumb downtown, that’s where I go across the bridge and buy my groceries. I cross the bridge to go to church. I mean, it’s foolish.” ▼ LGBTQ+ NEW EXPRESSIONS WITH RAINBOW CROSSWALKS GONE, DALLAS CONSIDERS NEW SYMBOLS OF PRIDE. BY EMMA RUB A ter a state order demanded that Texas cities remove decorated crosswalks, the city of Dallas is looking for a new way to display neighbor- hood pride. Decorative crosswalks are being removed across Dallas to comply with the order, in- cluding dozens of rainbow-colored walk- ways in the Oak Lawn neighborhood and several Black Lives Matter-themed cross- walks in South Dallas. Dallas’ Office of Arts and Culture and the Department of Trans- portation are partnering to identify new in- stallations that express appreciation for the affected neighborhoods. During a pair of recent community meet- ings, city leaders heard recommendations for new installations, collected feedback on the themes residents want to see in the new projects, and launched neighborhood iden- tity surveys to gather ideas. City leaders sug- gested that new murals, strategic landscaping, decorated benches and ban- ners may be among the solutions to replace the art that was erased. “We stand with you,” Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Moreno told community mem- bers at one of the meetings. “We’re going to find other ways to show appreciation and love for our communities.” There is no set timeline for when the city’s contributions will be completed. Mar- tinne Philippe, director of the Office of Arts and Culture, said that once concrete ideas have been pulled from the feedback received during the community outreach period, it will be up to the Department of Transporta- tion to determine what is “feasible.” The next step will be to consider the budget im- plications, something Philippe said may re- quire some “creative solutions.” Avery James, a resident of the Oak Lawn neighborhood that has historically been a landing place for members of the LGBTQ+ community, is still grappling with the re- moval of the rainbow crosswalks. She wor- ries that the mandate was “a small step” towards a larger effort to silence the com- munity that she loves. She’s been reassured, though, by the grassroots art installations that have already been installed across Cedar Springs Road in an effort to push back on the governor’s mandate. Within days of Gov. Greg Abbott’s order, the Oak Lawn United Methodist Church painted its steps to display the rain- bow pride flag. The installation will be al- lowed to remain for at least three years. In his memorandum, Abbott claimed that the crosswalk crackdown was an attempt to ensure that tax dollars aren’t being used to promote political ideologies. During the Fri- day community meeting in Oak Lawn, Tony Vedda, president of the North Texas LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, argued that the rainbow installations represented identity, not ideology. They signaled that drivers had crossed into a neighborhood where “every- one is welcome,” he said. But he urged community members not to focus only on the rainbow crosswalks. “I think as much as we’re unhappy about our rainbows going away, we should be equally unhappy about [the Black Lives Matter crosswalks] going away. I think it provides all of us an opportunity to reach out and work across communities on things that really benefit all of us,” Vedda said. “It is sad that they got twisted into something po- litical. … [The crosswalks] are gone now, but we’re not.” ▼ DALLAS SUBURBS NOT PROSPERING PLANT INFLUENCERS FORCED TO CLOSE UP SHOP OVER ZONING CONFUSION. BY EMMA RUBY T anner and Erika Mitchell are experts when it comes to plants — zoning, not so much. Which is why they were shocked when they were summoned to a meeting with Prosper city development officials and were told that they needed to immediately cease operations at their property, a quaint little white-trimmed home with a wraparound porch that sits on the edge of downtown Prosper, or else face a $2,000 a day fine. In an effort to come into compliance, they’ve been forced to shutter their popular plant store, Famous in Oregon, that sits on the town’s main road. The closure hasn’t been met quietly by the residents of Prosper. For eight months, a Victorian-style house had served as the hub of the Mitchell’s gar- dening brand, which includes the Instagram account @tannertheplanter, that has over 600,000 followers. They also operate an app that allows anyone from anywhere in the country to purchase their plants, have pub- lished a book on houseplant care and run the retail storefront in downtown. When they moved into the house last summer, they retrofitted the property with grow lights and lined the porch with flora. They employ 18 staffers to operate the online plant store; shipping the tropical inventory alone requires as much expertise in meteo- rology as in herbology to ensure the sensitive greenery arrives cross-country in mint condi- tion. They’d befriended their neighbors, which includes some residential homes and a smattering of other small offices. And it never occurred to them that what they were doing was wrong. “[The city officials said] ‘What is it you think you’re doing at 303 South Parvin?’ As soon as we walked in the door, we weren’t even sitting down yet. And I said, ‘Just ship- ping,’” Tanner told the Observer. “And he said, ‘That is exactly what you can’t do.’ Er- ika and I were just completely stunned, like speechless.” In the meeting, the Mitchells learned that their house’s zoning calls for the prop- erty to be used for an art gallery or museum, meaning their shipping operations were not permitted under the land use classification. They were also notified that they’d failed to obtain a certificate of occupancy, a docu- ment that local governments require to en- sure code compliance, for the building. For the latter claim, the business owners say they didn’t know any better. They opened Famous in Oregon during the pan- demic, when City Hall, like the rest of the world, wasn’t operating normally. The Mitchells met the permitting requirements when officials came to the store to help them with the process. Naively, they’d as- sumed that was how those sorts of opera- tions were done. But the zoning debate was new informa- tion to them. The art gallery or museum classification is a subsection of the down- town office land use; until a couple of weeks ago, Tanner and Erika were confident that a downtown office was exactly what they were running. Additionally, the Mitchells say city lead- ers assured them at a meeting last year that their shipping operations at the house were permitted, though the meeting wasn’t re- corded. In a recording of last week’s meeting provided to the Observer, city officials can be heard stating they have no memory of such an agreement. “The energy [in the meeting] Alex Gonzalez Rainbow crosswalks in Dallas are gone. Unfair Park from p4
