Trail Work Clinic with City Staff
Austin Ridge Riders, as your non-profit advocacy group, has continuously worked over the years on building and maintaining relationships with local government staff. We recently had the opportunity to do a trail work clinic with Jacob Barrett, City of Austin’s Transportation and Public Works Department. His role is in what is called Transportation Demand Management —and a part of that is promoting transportation alternatives.
Although mountain biking is often considered just an off-road activity, and a matter for parks and not for transportation, we point out that (1) Many MTB riders also commute (either to work or activities, but also to the trails); and (2) natural surface trails can actually be part of a transportation network — places like Bentonville, Madison, Crested Butte, Cleveland, and others — feature bike network maps that include natural surface singletrack as a way to cross the city.
While we love all the work and money that has been put into concrete urban trails, revamped bike lanes and protected bikeways etc., it’s worth a reminder to public policymakers / implementers that natural surface trails can be a low cost option. And, mountain biking should be considered in conversations about Transportation dollar spending; it’s not just an interest-group for under-funded Parks dollars.
So, for Jacob’s group, we brought tools, met everyone (from different City offices) and cleared a singletrack section from their work campus to a City easement that will then further connect to the Country Club Greenbelt Urban Trail.
For the next Texas Trails and Active Transportation Conference, I am working on proposing a presentation on Planning for Mountain Biking in Transporation Systems. If anyone wants to discuss that topic with me, please feel free to reach out!
Thanks a ton to this group of City-employee bike commuters for coming out to make the idea happen! Thanks Andrei, Jacob, Manuela, Cecily, Neil, Xavier, Andy, Maddie, and Laura, from the City, as well as Charlie, Sue, Carl and Cullen from ARR.
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