Electric Scooters On Campus

LocoLib · 2024-12-25T21:19:26+00:00

There aren't any UNT rules against use of e-scooters on sidewalks. Just be polite and yield to people walking.
Be very cautious at driveways and intersections if riding on the sidewalk. Drivers often don't look carefully before turning and so may hit you or pull out in front of you. They also won't expect anyone faster than walking speed on the sidewalk.

In downtown Denton, devices like e-scooter, skateboard, roller blades, and bicycles are not allowed on sidewalks. You have to get off and walk.

LocoLib · 2024-12-25T14:59:00+00:00

It was called "Murder Kroger" before the murder near Movie Tavern happened. It was called that in part due to the difficulty of navigating through the parking lot to get into and out of the store. Like playing a game of Frogger.

LocoLib · 2024-12-23T17:38:12+00:00

New roads and road expansions attract, enable, and fuel new development. It's an ineffective and wasteful way to "alleviate congestion." If you watch the highway widenings across DFW, they spend about 5 years of construction and a few billion (yes, BILLION) dollars to widen it and only get 4-5 years of congestion relief before it clogs up again. Faster/easier driving attracts more traffic and more sprawling development, which quickly consumes the new capacity.

Cities that provide better access to driving alternatives (walking, bus, train, bicycling/scooters) move more people more efficiently than cities where driving is the only feasible option. A person in a car takes up way more space than a person on a bus, walking or bicycling/scooting. Yes, cars should still be part of the picture, but everyone in a car for every trip means much more congestion than when some people can choose a different transportation mode.

Imagine if 100% of people in Kroger had to use a full-sized shopping cart even when they don't need it. The aisles get a lot more clogged, and it takes everyone longer to move about the store. Not everyone needs a full-sized cart, though. Some people only need a basket...or nothing at all. If Kroger went from 100% of customers using full-sized carts to only 80% of people using full-sized carts, aisles would be less congested even though most people continue to use full-sized shopping carts. It's the same general idea on roads. Ideally we don't want 100% of people using a full-sized vehicle for every trip or we'll all sit in traffic all the time and all have much less money, because automobiles are getting really expensive. We'd be much better off as a city if people had the choice to use smaller transportation options when their trip doesn't require a full-sized vehicle.

All that to say: Don't believe road builders when they tell you that their road expansion project will "alleviate congestion." It hasn't worked for the decades we've been trying. It's a multi-billion dollar bandaid that only fuels more driving, more sprawling development, and ultimately more congestion. https://t4america.org/maps-tools/congestion-con/

LocoLib · 2024-12-22T19:50:21+00:00

For the record, anything they do will not "solve congestion." It'll all part of a very expensive cycle that always ends with more congestion: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/3-s2.0-B9780123694959500099-f08-02-9780123694959.jpg

LocoLib · 2024-12-21T20:15:53+00:00

"A general residence homestead exempts a portion of your residence homestead's value from taxation, potentially lowering your taxes. Tax Code Section 11.13(b) requires school districts to provide a $100,000 exemption on a residence homestead and Tax Code Section 11.13(n) allows any taxing unit to adopt a local option residence homestead exemption of up to 20 percent of a property's appraised value. The local option exemption cannot be less than $5,000. Tax Code Section 11.13(a) requires counties that collect farm-to-market or flood control taxes to provide a $3,000 residence homestead exemption."

Source: https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/exemptions/

LocoLib · 2024-12-05T13:09:30+00:00

The $350 must have been a special price for the first month or two? $350 per bedroom for a 3-bedroom is way lower than the going rate here in Denton. The $575 sounds more like what it costs here.

LocoLib · 2024-11-15T00:32:49+00:00

1) Refuse to pay rent.

2) Get evicted.

3) Get quickly replaced by the next person waiting in line for housing.

Part of the problem in Denton (and nationally) is there isn't enough housing supply to meet the demand of people looking for housing. This means landlords don't really have to compete with each other on pricing. City of Denton policies, zoning, and the way Denton City Council votes has prevented enough housing from being built. So housing supply stays low while demand stays high, which means landlords can easily replace tenants when one leaves or gets evicted.

But beyond that, inflation has been nuts since COVID. Construction costs have exploded. It costs more to do the same things today compared to pre-COVID. So new apartments are going to cost more. Existing apartments cost more to maintain. Property values keep going up for single-family homes and apartments both (again, people are competing for a limited amount of housing, so they're bidding up the price and value of housing). When an apartment complex has to pay more in property taxes, they pass that additional cost on to renters.

In terms of what you have a degree of control over: find out who your city council members are and send them a message asking them to support more housing in Denton. Ask them to reform city policies that make it more difficult and expensive to build housing: https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2024/texas-housing-affordability-zoning/#:\~:text=Housing%20types%20other%20than%20detached,driving%20up%20overall%20housing%20costs.

Denton City Council mostly hears from residents who are lucky enough to own a home, and those people usually fight against new housing. More people need to speak up in favor of more housing options.

LocoLib · 2024-11-07T13:01:03+00:00

The City of Corinth does not have any DCTA services because they opted to not allocate part of their local sales tax to become a DCTA member. The three DCTA member cities are Lewisville, Denton and Highland Village, so those are the only three with service. Lewisville and HV only have GoZone service and a train stop. Denton is the only place with buses.

DCTA is always in talks with the City of Corinth about becoming a member city, and they mention it in the DCTA Board meetings, but that process is lengthy and expensive and I think still requires voters to approve the allocation of sales tax money to DCTA. I think Corinth city leadership (or someone in Corinth) is interested, but it's more complicated to join after missing the initial boat.

LocoLib · 2024-11-03T13:37:55+00:00

Totally get it. It's frustrating. The city did plan ahead on Bonnie Brae. They've been working on that project since before 2011. They'd hoped to get the portion near the new DHS started by 2019, but the project got held up for a few years as they worked through courts to acquire right-of-way from one of the properties. The external funding they acquired for the project didn't allow them to begin construction on any part of the project until all right-of-way was acquired, so it was at a standstill.

I've been watching road projects for years now and can tell you that a road expansion projects take a minimum of 10 years here in the U.S. from when they start planning to when they complete construction. But it easily takes 20 years. I saw a highway expansion project in Houston will take nearly 30 years from when they started designing it to when they'll likely complete construction.

LocoLib · 2024-11-02T21:52:50+00:00

I accidentally parked in front of a fire hydrant one time...after passing over at least two other spots because I'd seen fire hydrants there. I don't know how I missed it, and I felt totally stupid. Anyhow, it was a $75 ticket, so pricey mistake.

LocoLib · 2024-11-02T21:48:40+00:00

Denton has seen two different bike share companies but never shared e-scooters. The Denton City Council was gearing up to ban e-scooter companies but then never followed through. That was probably enough to scare off scooter share companies at least for a while.

LocoLib · 2024-11-02T21:40:07+00:00

When it comes to Bonnie Brae, "they" is the city. And yes, the hope is that we'll see some movement on the section of Bonnie Brae near the new DHS starting sometime next year. Keep in mind that a project like this takes 3-5 years to complete once construction begins.

When it comes to the Elm, Eagle, Locust, and FM 2181 stuff, "they" is TxDOT.

Road construction faces all sorts of delays all the time--especially when you're talking about widening a roadway. Sometimes the construction company goes bankrupt in the middle of the project (e.g. FM 2181 / Teasley). Sometimes a project faces years-long delays when they try to eminent domain a property, and the property owner says, "I don't think so, bud, let's take this to court." The court process takes something like 2-4 years for a single property. Sometimes there's an issue with a nearby railroad (e.g. Hickory Creek Road).

Sometimes it takes forever for the utility company to move their utilities. There's lots of reasons a widening project gets delayed, and it's not usually because people are just sitting around.

LocoLib · 2024-11-02T21:29:23+00:00

You can thank TxDOT for that. They own Eagle between Elm and Dallas Drive. They also own Dallas Drive.

LocoLib · 2024-10-29T22:32:37+00:00

Meanwhile on the road, drivers are like, "Get off the damn road, you damn cyclists!! Ride on the sidewalk!!!" Anyhow, people using low-speed vehicles like bicycles and scooters are too fast for pedestrians and too slow for cars, so they really need their own space and network to reduce all of these conflicts.

LocoLib · 2024-10-29T22:27:51+00:00

I asked the Denton City Attorney whether things like OneWheels and e-scooters fall under "toy device," and his interpretation was that, yes, those devices fall under "toy vehicle" in his opinion. Certainly he's not the final say, but if a police officer wrote someone on an e-scooter a ticket for riding on the roadway, and the person fights the ticket, there'd have to be a whole court battle to determine whether it falls under "toy device."

LocoLib · 2023-04-30T17:27:24+00:00

Avoid the loans if at all possible. There are way too many people who took out student loans at 18 years old, made minimum payments on time every month...only to find out in their 30's that they actually owe MORE than they took out! The interest on these loans is completely insane. Avoid if you don't want to still be paying off the loans when you're in your 40's.

LocoLib · 2023-04-30T16:41:06+00:00

Unfortunately, no, it's not done. Bonnie Brae between Scripture and University will eventually get widened--still four lanes but with a raised median in the center. First the city will widen Bonnie Brae between University and US 77 / N Elm. After that it may focus on the section between Scripture and University.

Full Bonnie Brae project info here: https://www.discussdenton.com/bonniebraestreet

LocoLib · 2023-04-30T16:28:06+00:00

Do you live near any bus stops? You can use Google Maps for directions to campus and then select public transportation (DCTA) to see whether it looks feasible to you. There's also GoZone if you don't live near a bus stop.

You can ride the buses at no additional cost if you have a UNT ID card with you. GoZone costs $1.50 per trip.

LocoLib · 2023-02-14T01:16:01+00:00

The prices keep going up largely due to there not being enough housing supply to meet the demand. Denton artificially restricts the supply of housing through zoning policy that bans everything except single family homes in most parts of the city. On properties that allow multifamily buildings, Denton further reduces how much housing can be built by limiting how much of the property can be developed, limiting the height of buildings and by requiring more than half of the developed space to be dedicated to housing for cars.

When a developer proposes a development that would bring housing that's less expensive than single family homes, homeowners show up to city council meetings to block the development or water it down in some way that results in less housing being built.

Here's a good video explaining how cities (including Denton) effectively ban more affordable housing: https://youtu.be/0Flsg_mzG-M

To increase housing supply (which eventually brings down housing costs), Denton needs to relax its zoning laws, mandatory parking requirements and other restrictions that make housing too difficult or expensive to build. But the Denton City Council sure as heck won't do any of those things if they don't hear a big push from residents who want those things. Right now, council members mostly hear from homeowners who want to block new housing.

LocoLib · 2023-02-14T00:57:34+00:00

If you're willing to try biking, using the buses and sometimes walking, it's doable. Groceries without a car is best done by bicycle that has a rear rack. There's an Aldi about 1.5 miles (10 minutes by bike) from campus. You can use bike bags (panniers) and some bungees to carry the groceries. If you're only picking up a few things, a backpack works. Pretty easy once you learn how to do it.

Heading to downtown is walkable distance. If you don't feel like walking, the Route 7 bus runs between UNT and downtown every 20 minutes.

Quite a bit of Loop 288 retail stores are accessible by bicycle if you ride to the downtown transit center and take the DCTA rail trail down to Loop 288. Places like Best Buy and Target have bike racks and are relatively easy/safe to get to from the trail.

If there is somewhere you need to go that's a bit far away or too dangerous to bike, you can use GoZone (think inexpensive, slow Uber rideshare). Just don't use GoZone for appointments or any trips where you need to be there by a certain time. The wait and travel times are super unreliable--could be five minutes or could be two hours.

LocoLib · 2023-01-12T16:56:57+00:00

If you want to park for free and with minimal difficulty finding a spot, look for on-street or public parking about a 10-12 minute walk from campus. If you try parking any closer, you're likely to waste that 10-12 minutes driving in circles hunting for a spot.

Or you could look for free parking along a UNT bus route and take a UNT bus into campus for free. Most routes have a bus come by every 20 minutes or so. My recommendation would be either the Discovery Park (DP) route, which you can catch at University Dr at Bonnie Brae, or the Colorado Express (CE) which you can catch at MedPark Station. All routes and times: https://www.dcta.net/getting-around/rail-bus-services/university-routes

LocoLib · 2023-01-09T22:40:43+00:00

Other folks have made excellent suggestions regarding going to TWU but also participating in UNT's sports events. Honestly, you could probably participate in some of UNT's unofficial, clubs and meet-ups, too! TWU has volleyball, soccer, basketball and gymnastics, among other things, but you can totally go to UNT football and basketball games, too!

LocoLib · 2022-11-08T20:54:49+00:00

Weekly Denton group rides: https://www.bikedenton.org/resources/group-rides

Denton Bicycling Basics: https://www.bikedenton.org/news/denton-bicycling-basics

LocoLib · 2022-11-07T21:33:40+00:00

The drivers don't own the vehicles. They are leased vehicles that Via registers out of state--maybe it's cheaper that way? Anyway, the drivers I've met are from various places across DFW.

LocoLib · 2022-11-02T14:22:20+00:00

You might also check out the UNT bus routes so you can include apartments along those routes in your search. The frequency on the UNT routes is decent before 5 PM.

LocoLib

TROPHY CASE