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Posted Apr 20, 2026, 11:04 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jan 2026
Posts: 5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by urbancore
We just finished a 15-mile family ride around Lady Bird Lake, starting and ending in Zilker.
We headed down to the trail, rode east across the new pedestrian bridge, stopped downtown for lunch, rode through Rainey Street and the 9th Street pump track, then followed Shoal Creek back home. The whole loop took a few hours.
My report:
The trail looks better than I have ever seen it. I have run and ridden it weekly since 1987, the new work on the east side of Barking Creek is excellent, and all the additions on the NE side close to Holly were a welcomed surprise.
The Butler Hike and Bike Trail remains the crown jewel of Austin, even from a harsh critic like me.
The new pedestrian bridge serves its purpose and was badly needed, but it is nothing special. The real highlight is the mosaic-tiled tunnel under PV. It is outstanding.
People of all ages filled the trail—walking, running, cycling, chatting, sunbathing, picnicking, fishing, and boating. I saw very few homeless. On the entire 15-mile ride, I could count them on one hand.
Rainey Street was lively. Music played from the bars and people filled the sidewalks. The new Waterline development looks excellent, especially the entrance on Red River. We could not ride along the creek yet, but it should be impressive when it opens. Waller Creek flowed clean and clear. Those who say the new buildings ruined Rainey are wrong. The street was busy and full of energy even at 2 p.m. on a Sunday.
We stopped for lunch on Second Street. The whole area felt clean, fresh, and active, with fit, handsome people EVERYWHERE!
At the pump track we watched kids doing backflips on the jumps they built themselves. So glad they fought the city and won to keep that park open. My kids are 9 and 11, and both learned to ride at that park during the pandemic all those years ago. So cool.
On the ride back South along Shoal Creek, I noticed real improvement. Normally the trail/creek has a lot of litter and homeless blocking the path. Today the litter was minimal, and we saw no one blocking the trail.
Our downtown has become one of my favorites in the country. We lack historic buildings and old churches, but we have a clean, vibrant, easy-to-navigate downtown full of things to do. There are no dead zones or areas I would hesitate to ride with my kids.
God bless Austin, Texas. We are fortunate to live here.
I recommend you grab your bike this spring and take this ride yourself. You will not be disappointed.
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Agreed: We have an amazing downtown! A few things, I think, make it distinctive:
- Many of our skyscrapers aren’t walled off from the street, they converse with the area around them: tall buildings spill out onto the streetscape with retail and restaurants; sidewalks have been widened, not only for placemaking, but to calm traffic; blocks are treelined to protect pedestrians from the summer sun and are relatively short, which makes them seem more walkable; and streets aren’t meant to zoom people in and out of downtown, they’re built to entice pedestrians to walk and linger. Our downtown isn’t only impressive from a distance; it’s impressive at street level.
- Lady Bird Lake is dedicated to recreation and seems more natural than engineered. Most other cities industrialized their riverfronts to support industry, first, and then added parkland post-industrialization.
- We're probably one of the few U.S. cities that has two original uncovered creek beds running through its downtown. Many cities have streets named “spring” or “creek” or “brook” where original springs, creeks, or brooks once flowed or were covered up by asphalt.
- After having scraped the earth to build their downtowns, many U.S. cities later built parks to weave in their green spaces. Austin, it seems, built its downtown by a park, instead. And residents don’t have to cross a freeway to access our riverfront or parks, they just have to cross a downtown street to get to over 2,700 combined acres of contiguous parkland: Butler trail, Lady Bird Lake, Butler Park, Auditorium Shores, Vic Mathias Shores, Guerrero Park, Zilker Park, Festival Beach, Shoal Creek, Pease Park, the Waterloo Greenway, the Greenbelt, etc. Each park or trail might be run by a different entity, but to the casual pedestrian or cyclist, it’s just one big contiguous, recreational greenspace.
- While I-35 abuts our downtown, at least it only abuts one side of it. A lot of U.S. downtowns are completely choked off from the rest of their cities by freeways that completely encircle them.
- We’re building and improving upon an incredible civic spine that will connect important parts of our city: Pedestrians are able to walk from Lady Bird Lake to the Capitol up Congress Avenue on wide sidewalks that are currently being refreshed with upgrades. Soon, they’ll be able to walk from the Capitol to the Blanton Museum through the Texas Capitol Mall. And from there, they’re able to walk up Speedway Mall through the university. It’s like we’re building our own version of the Roman Forum or Las Ramblas right here in Austin.
Last edited by zguerra; May 10, 2026 at 12:00 PM.
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