by Nelson England Some Austinites have been dreaming about it for decades: a system of
interlinking urban trails that would allow hikers and bikers to get around town
free of the fumes, noise, danger, and harassment of motorized traffic. Now the
dream is within the range of fulfillment if Austin’s cyclists and pedestrians
can seize the moment, say leaders of the Austin Metropolitan Trails Council
(AMTC).
The AMTC is a coalition of representatives from 25 area organizations and
government agencies that came together in 1993 to form a trail advocacy group.
At the time, a new federal law had just created a special category of
transportation funding called “Enhancements” – dedicated to non-roadway,
alternative transit projects – that was up for bids in a statewide competition.
As several local organizations began drawing up proposals to capture
Enhancements funds to add to Austin’s trail system, they found themselves
competing with each other, and decided to join forces instead. The result was
the AMTC, and the winning of almost $7 million in federal and local funds for
Austin trails in the first two years of Enhancements funding, approved in the
Spring of 1994.
Visionary Austinites have long recognized the potential of a comprehensive
urban trail system following the natural hub and spoke network created by the
city’s creeks feeding into Town Lake. Such a system would make it possible, for
example, for a cyclist to leave the University of Texas following a spoke trail
along Waller Creek to the Colorado River, then continue on the Town Lake hub
trail to another spoke trail following Barton Creek to Barton Springs. Other
spokes along Shoal, Johnson, East and West Bouldin, Blunn, and Boggy Creeks
would provide access between the east-west Town Lake hub and neighborhoods in
North and South Austin.
The problem in realizing this potential has always been the lack of funding.
Trails have usually been considered “recreational” by state and local
transportation planners, and of minor importance compared to the “serious
business” of moving cars. It was only after passage of the Intermodal Surface
Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) by Congress in 1991, and the creation of
the Enhancement funds through that law, that transportation funding for trails
became more feasible. ISTEA provides ways for cities to comply with the
mandates of the Clean Air Act by correcting the imbalances of
automobile-dominated transportation. Under ISTEA, walking and cycling are
considered not just recreational, but highly desirable, non-polluting modes of
commuting and travel, and the Enhancements funding category was placed off
limits to highway planners in order to ensure that at least some money gets
spent on trails.
In addition, ISTEA gives new funding authority to regional Metropolitan
Planning Organizations, such as the Austin Transportation Study (ATS), our
regional committee. The ATS now commands about $7.8 million a year in federal
Surface Transportation Program funds for local road, bike, pedestrian, and
transit projects. So far, ATS has voted to spend 15% of that on bicycle and
pedestrian projects.
The Vision Thing: Starting From the Hub
Armed with a $20,000 grant from ATS, and planning assistance from a group of
dedicated volunteers, the AMTC set out two years ago to develop a comprehensive
metropolitan area trail plan. For several months, volunteers sought citizen
input on where to locate the most desirable trail corridors. Other volunteers
“ground checked” each trail proposal, and ranked it according to its
feasibility and significance to a regional system. The result was this summer’s
release of the AMTC’s Vision Document, which outlines plans for more than 70
potential trail corridors and greenbelts.
While some of the trails proposed in the Vision Document already
have money set aside for them from ISTEA, another 14 trails ranked as having
the highest potential would require additional funding proposed under an
AMTC-backed $20-25 million municipal bond package. This money, however, would
be used only for trails within the Austin city limits, and would probably not
be enough for all 14 trails, according to Kathryn Nichols of Texas Parks and
Wildlife. Completion of this highest priority system would add 35-50 miles of
trails to the city’s 35 miles of existing trails, firmly establishing the hub
and spoke system at the urban core, as well as providing major connections to
surrounding suburbs and wilderness parks. The Austin Parks Advisory Board
recently voted to ask the city council to call for a public vote on the bond
package as early as next year.
A major priority for a successful trail system is completion of the hub – the
Town Lake Trail, which runs continuously on the north shore of Town Lake
between MoPac and Pleasant Valley Road. On the south shore, there’s a 2.5-mile
gap from just east of I-35 to near the Austin American-Statesman offices, east of Congress Avenue. But closing this gap could prove expensive:
the area between I-35 and Congress is built out to the shore with apartments
and businesses. If passed, funding for construction of a causeway out over the
edge of Town Lake would be provided by the bond package.
Radiating out from the central Town Lake Trail are a series of proposed and
completed trailways. One is the Colorado River Trail, a proposed two-mile
extension of the Town Lake Trail east of Pleasant Valley Road on the south
shore of the river, which would include a branch heading south to ACC’s
Riverside Campus. Long-term plans call for extending the Town Lake Trail
on the north shore from west of Deep Eddy Swimming Pool to north of Tom Miller
Dam in West Austin.
A Lamar Blvd. Bike and Pedestrian Bridge, paralleling Lamar over the Colorado
River, will provide another important link in the Town Lake Trail system.
Enhancements funding is already allocated for this million-dollar project –
which will be patterned after the South First Street Pedestrian Bridge – but
construction is being delayed while the city seeks funds to expand the Lamar
Bridge to six lanes of automobile traffic. Lamar exemplifies one of the biggest
hurdles to a comprehensive trail system: major arterials and freeways that form
dangerous barriers to continuous cycle and pedestrian travel. Breaching these
barriers usually costs more than constructing many miles of trails.
Creekside Spokes
Important spoke trail corridors in the urban core that have already been
approved for federal ISTEA funding and are awaiting construction include
Shoal, Waller, and Barton Creeks. Shoal Creek probably has the greatest
potential in Austin for a major commuter trail. Currently, the trail is
continuous for three miles from Town Lake to 38th Street near Seton Hospital,
though gaps created by flood damage must be repaired. ISTEA money will pay for
a bridge and crosswalk to ease the passage over 38th Street, thereby connecting
the trail northward to Shoal Creek Boulevard, an important bicycle commuting
route that runs all the way to US183. North of 183, a proposed segment of trail
along Shoal Creek is funded as far north as Braker Lane. And although Shoal
Creek Blvd. provides a fast route for cyclists between US183 and 38th Street,
long-term plans call for constructing a creekside trail through this segment as
well.
Also slated for construction is the Zilker Park Trail, which will fill in the
current gap between Town Lake, Barton Springs, and the eight-mile-long Barton
Creek Trail. The Zilker trail will go up the east side of Barton Creek from the
Town Lake Trail, passing under Barton Springs Road. Just upstream of Barton
Springs Pool, a bicycle/pedestrian bridge will connect with the Barton Creek
Trail west of the creek.
Another trail with great potential is the Waller Creek Trail, which some
citizens see as Austin’s answer to San Antonio’s Riverwalk. Major trail
renovation is already completed on much of the creek, which flows through the
UT campus, Waterloo Park, Symphony Square, Sixth Street, and the Convention
Center on its way to Town Lake. However, major problems prevent extensive use
of the trail. Waller Creek has the worst pollution of any urban creek, with
trash washing directly into it from downtown streets. Frequent flooding damages
the trail, and several gaps in the trail require travelers to cross busy
streets, making it unpleasant for pedestrians and impractical for cyclists.
Gang graffiti, transient camps, and drug transactions likewise discourage trail
use. Some federal funds have already been allocated to help solve some of these
problems by adding accessible ramps, bicycle/pedestrian bridges, new trail
links, lighting, and creek bank stabilization. However, major renovation may
have to await a longer-term solution to flooding, a major expense not currently
funded.
Three other creek corridors important to the central trail hub and spoke
system recommended by AMTC could receive federal funding for improvements – if
approved by the ATS at their next meeting in August. The proposed Boggy Creek
Trail would extend from Town Lake for 2.6 miles to the Downs-Mabson Baseball
Field in East Austin. The Blunn Creek Trail, which passes through Stacy Park in
South Austin’s Travis Heights, would be extended north of Riverside Drive to
the Town Lake Trail. (Future high-priority plans call for extending it south of
Travis Heights to the Blunn Creek Wilderness Park and St. Edward’s University,
as well.) The city has also asked ATS to fund a 150-foot bicycle/pedestrian
ramp under MoPac at Sixth Street to connect an east-west segment of the Johnson
Creek Trail to the main north-south route.
Farther out from the urban center, federal enhancements money has also already
been allocated for one major trail addition; the Moore’s Crossing Trail will
connect McKinney Falls State Park via Onion Creek to Richard Moya County Park
south of Bergstrom. Eventually cyclists may be able to ride to McKinney Falls
directly from Austin via proposed connections from the Colorado River Trail and
from Southeast Austin neighborhoods.
Other potential corridors that would help connect the urban core to outlying
natural areas include Slaughter Creek in South Austin, Bull Creek in the
northwest, and Walnut Creek in the northeast. Trails along these and other
creeks would be funded in the municipal bond package that AMTC is promoting.
While implementation of the AMTC’s Vision Plan is off to a good
start, significant problems lie ahead. Rapidly increasing urban sprawl means
that more and more land in the urban watershed is covered with asphalt. This
impervious cover causes rainwater to run off rapidly and flood the creeks,
rather than soaking into the ground. Trails along the creeks may be damaged by
the flooding while the creeks themselves make less desirable corridors because
of pollution from urban runoff. And security along creek corridors may be a
problem as well, as exemplified by the recent rash of attacks on joggers and
cyclists along Town Lake. Landowners along creek corridors may put up stiff
opposition to trail construction, as happened recently when plans were unveiled
for the Moore’s Crossing Trail on Onion Creek (though Kathryn Nichols says AMTC
is doing its best to work with landowners to prevent such controversy). Funding
may also be difficult, as city finances are tightening and federal money for
trails could dry up when the ISTEA bill comes up for renewal in 1998. A
conservative Congress intent on cutting spending may show little sympathy for
modes of travel that don’t subsidize the giant automotive sector of the
economy.
All the more reason for Austinites to seize the opportunity now to preserve
what we can of our creeks and greenbelts before motorized transport destroys
these last oases of calm in an asphalt desert. n
Adopt-a-Trail
The Austin Metropolitan Trails Council is a non-hierarchial, all-volunteer
organization whose members have put in hundreds of hours of their time to make
Austin’s trail system a reality. But the battle is just beginning, and more
volunteers are needed to increase public awareness of the trail plan in order
to gain city bonding approval. Other volunteers are needed to help plan trail
locations in their neighborhoods, or to organize neighborhood adopt-a-trail
groups to maintain trails. Since the city often lacks funds for trail
maintenance, AMTC organizes volunteers to work on the trails – often doing in
one day what it would take city workers weeks to accomplish. An Austin group
called the Central Texas Trail Tamers has gained expertise on trail building
and repair by working under the supervision of national park rangers. Members
of the Trail Tamers group are often available to help neighborhood groups
initiate their own projects.
For more information about the AMTC, call Kathryn Nichols at 389-4735, or
Butch Smith at Austin Department of Parks and Recreation at 499-6763. – N.E.
This article appears in July 28 • 1995 and July 28 • 1995 (Cover).