Image: The Trail Foundation
Austin’s much-loved Hike-and-Bike Trail has likely never been so important as an outdoor recreation facility of choice for downtown dwellers, even with a few pandemic-related challenges — and judging by its heavy use even during this endless crisis, not to mention the continual growth of the local housing market in spite of economic uncertainty elsewhere, it’s important to keep in mind how the trail can best accommodate an ever-increasing population of Austinites.
That’s the latest from the minds of the Trail Foundation, our local nonprofit org tasked with the 10-mile loop’s maintenance and improvement, as the group works in tandem with the city’s Parks and Recreation and Public Works Departments to assemble a comprehensive safety and mobility study to determine how the city’s growth has impacted the trail experience for users — and how to best address that growth through new design efforts and other maintenance over the next few decades.
Images collected by the study showing challenges along the trail identified by users as areas for improvement — erosion, poor drainage, unevenly paved surfaces, incomplete connectivity, narrow sections of the trail, and more. Images: The Trail Foundation
Issues highlighted by trail users in preliminary stages of this study show primary concerns related to narrow trail width, poor surface conditions and other erosion; insufficient lighting, incomplete signage, and underdeveloped access points connecting the trail to surrounding bike and pedestrian infrastructure — along certain parts of the circuit you’ll find lots of “desire paths” and other indicators that the way people prefer to use the trail doesn’t always line up with its design.
On the left, an area of the trail the Foundation says is an example of excessive lighting next to an unlit area. On the right, a view of a foot-level light installed on the trail that doesn’t really work very well — it’s not actually directed downwards, so it illuminates a small area compared to a different lighting design and creates a tripping hazard. Images: The Trail Foundation
One issue discussed in the study is lighting — and not just the lack of it in some places on the trail, although that is a problem in spots. But even in areas where lighting is installed, it may be insufficient, misdirected, or even excessive: “Spillover light,” the Foundation explains, “can both cause temporary blindness (making the eyes dilate back and forth) and make unlit areas even darker due to contrast.”
A map of conflicts along the trail collected through public input — you can learn more about these in the survey embedded below. Image: The Trail Foundation / PARD / Austin Public Works
This study, currently in its community engagement phase, started gathering information back in early 2020, but like everything else around here — and, you know, globally — the pandemic put a few speed bumps in the way, so the conclusion of the study’s been pushed back to Q1 2021. That’s good news for those of us who weren’t aware this effort was taking place at all!
The group is currently running a survey, open from October 16 to November 13, and we’d greatly appreciate you taking the ten minutes to fill it out — historically speaking, our readers have shown the ability to lead the pack on these sorts of things:
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