With 2.6M subscribers, the ‘Berm Peak’ YouTube channel and its content are making tracks.
The channel is hosted by Seth Alvo, who describes himself as “a seasoned video creator, avid cyclist, and self-taught bike mechanic. I enjoy the privilege of engaging with millions, sharing my insights and experiences. Living in Western NC’s mountains, I enjoy life with my family and our weird looking dog,” per his Substack.
In Alvo’s YouTube content, the episode “I Rode The ‘Worst’ City For Bikes—Dallas, Texas,” posted on October 27, has already received 2678K views at the time this article was written.
Full episode:
Alvo took to parts of Dallas, videoing himself along the way, to give his thoughts on the bikeability of the City.
“Dallas, Texas, is the worst place to commute by bike, apparently. It came in 50th place for bikeability on a study of 50 cities,” began Alvo.
Alvo briefly described the City’s specific bike laws, including stating that riding on sidewalks is allowed except in the downtown business district.
Alvo made his way to City Hall, explaining that recently “a bunch of city council members biked here as they were working on a new bike plan for the city … one part of the proposed plan was a protected bike lane from Harwood Park to the AT&T Discovery District. I’m gonna go and ride that route right now just to see what it’s like with no bicycling infrastructure.”
Alvo took the route, noting that it was “relatively easy bike riding” despite the new bike infrastructure not being implemented yet. Currently, “there’s no bike lanes, there’s no path,” Alvo said.
Admittedly, Alvo had “only explored a fraction of downtown Dallas,” but it was pretty low-key.
In his continued ride in Dallas, Alvos would later note that “there’s only bicycling infrastructure in the rich areas, but it looks like they’re doing a good gentrification job over here. So it should be coming soon.”
“So what of Dallas? Well, I kind of had the best day riding my bike ever. Road jumps, spoke to bike mechanics, ate tacos. But I see why it’s rated so low because these studies use everything from the bike laws in the area, like the fact that you can’t roll through a stop sign or a stoplight, speed limits, existing infrastructure, planned infrastructure, and connectedness,” said Alvo.
“There’s a whole bunch of really nice greenways here, and they’re not really connected to each other. Also, a lot of these studies incorporate equity. So, if you can afford it, super bikeable. For the ‘worst city,’ it’s a whole lot better than a lot of other cities,” concluded Alvo.
