Our Parks Our Future: Austin Parks and Recreation Long Range Plan

Improve North South greenways

Focus on N/S green arteries, e.g. South Austin: Bouldin greenbelt, Stacey to Lady Bird Lake trail system.

Don’t use the Great Lawn at Zilker for ACL or the Trail of Lights—they result in closure of our public space for 3 months, ruining the grass

Connect East Austin and South Austin

Focus on building out trails/bridges that connect South Austin (E. Riverside) to East Austin. The 35 bridge passage is loud and unpleasant. The dam crossing east of there narrow and treacherous.

Convert detention & retention ponds to public nature places and create mechanism for new ponds to be public places

Austin is a semi-arid place and surface water features are rare. Also, public parks and natural places are not adequately distributed throughout the city. Furthermore, Austin has very little public space altogether, aside from the public space used for private automobiles to move about the city. Two-part proposal: 1) Convert existing water detention and retention ponds to wet or dry park features that can be enjoyed and visited by the public. 2) Establish an ordinance that requires or incentivizes new development or redevelopments to create any water detention or retention pond as a usable public place, and to help facilitate more these to be water retention ponds rather than (dry) water detention ponds. These public places could be established as easements on private land that grant public access or as transfers of property to the City of Austin. Existing good examples include Mueller Lake Park and Butler Metro Park.

Park access

Upgrade park access with updated curb cuts with attention to visibility, grade, and safety to promote access to green spaces.