New Lake Boardwalk Finally Being Built
Work is finally beginning on a new boardwalk to enhance the trail around Lady Bird Lake. Photo by Jeff Heimsath for KUT News.Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
In 2010, Austin voters approved $90 million in transportation projects, including a new boardwalk along a section of Lady Bird Lake. A year and a half later, the city’s just getting started on construction of the boardwalk. KUT’s Wells Dunbar spoke with Ben Wear, transportation reporter at the Austin American-Statesman, about the vision for the project and what the holdup was.
There was a section of the hike and bike trail from just east of the Statesman, which is a little bit east of Congress Avenue, where there are apartments in the way and cliffs and other barriers. At that point the trail has always been forced to go inland. It goes over to East Riverside Drive, and so for about the next mile, people who want to use the trail are nowhere near the lake before returning to the lake finally at Lakeshore Park, east of I-35. So this would basically keep people either over the lake, or right next to the lake, because the boardwalk is a combination of actual over-the-water boardwalk and on-land trail.
The holdup appears to be issues with easements, though the city has been quiet about what exactly the problem is.
Read Wear’s latest coverage of the boardwalk at statesman.com.
Podcast: Download (3.2MB)
