Construction on a 6-mile bikeway across Lance Armstrong's adopted hometown of Austin is expected to start this spring.
Talk about the Lance Armstrong Bikeway started in 2000, but the plans, access and funding has taken this long for approval. It's expected to be completed in 2008.
For those familiar with Austin, a map of the bikeway shows it's a pretty much straight east-west shot between Mopac and Airport Boulevard/Hwy 183. It fronts the lake in the west and crosses downtown generally on Fourth and Fifth streets, combining off-road paths, and on street-bicycle lanes and signed routes.
The News8 website reports about art that will be placed along the bikeway. It says:
Along the way there will be three “tunnels” – square Slinky-like coils that are 12 feet high, 32 feet long and 6 feet across.
“They're sort of sculptural points that give access to pedestrians and bikers to the bikeway,” (Arts in Public Places Administrator Megan) Crigger said.
I'm having a difficult time picturing this.
Austin area bicycling
We lived in Austin for about five years, and I was lucky to live along the southern part of town. Once I left my neighborhood, I was quickly on a highway with a good shoulder that took me right out to the rural Texas hill country.
I remember lots of lonely miles out there, just me and the deer and armadillo road kill. I could choose a quick 20-mile loop or meander south to barbecue joints and Confederate memorial parks.
One of the places I'd stop at on the way home was the 3.1-mile Veloway (pictured above from a city website), a quirky bicycle-rollerblade loop out in the middle of nowhere near the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. It was an easy way to add a few extra miles onto a ride, and after so many miles out in the scrub, this was often the only place to see other cyclists.
While cyclists pooh-poohed the project initially, because it diverted money away for in-town bike lanes, it has become surrounded by development and sees plenty of use, according to this Veloway website.
You can read up on the Lance Armstrong Bikeway in Austin's project report.
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