A new portion of the Waterloo Greenway bordering Lady Bird Lake opened June 6 to Austinites, featuring local businesses, musicians and food vendors. Developers and officials say they hope it will help make this area of downtown Austin safer and more environmentally friendly.<\/p>\n
The Waterloo Greenway is a project aiming to build a 1 \u00bd mile strip of parks that begins on East 15th Street at Moody Amphitheater and Waterloo Park. Upon completion, it will trail south all the way to the Lady Bird Lakefront. Phase two of the project, titled \u2018The Confluence,\u2019 is a 13-acre park from East 4th Street to the lakefront. Construction in this section began in August 2024.<\/p>\n
John Rigdon, chief planning and design officer with Waterloo Greenway Conservancy, said public input was a major part of the construction process, to ensure the project directly benefited the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout the project, we\u2019ve been engaging and working closely with community members,\u201d Rigdon said. \u201cWe also did an extensive history report \u2026 that includes both document research and oral histories from community members. That\u2019s helped us shape the design, looking back and thinking about the history of the communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new stretch of park brings thousands of plants to downtown, as well as a new flood control tunnel to support drainage. The landscape includes nearly 1,600 trees and 200,000 new plants, Rigdon said. The conservancy also aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the project by providing shade and cooling concrete and asphalt, lowering temperatures in the urban area.<\/p>\n
Safety is a main focus of the project, Rigdon said. The trail features new lighting and signs helping pedestrians and bikers along the path.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Before), it was disconnected trails. There was no lighting, steep and eroded banks, dead ends,\u201d Rigdon said. \u201cBetween the guardrails, the lighting, the new boardwalk trail that goes underneath Red River and Cesar Chavez street, the signage and other information, we\u2019ve really improved safety and mobility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, who attended the opening, wrote in a statement that this is just the start of a \u201cgreener\u201d downtown and shared plans to continue this path, dubbed the \u201cTower to Town Lake\u201d corridor, north, all the way to the University.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, we are building a living strand of nature woven through our city that opens a greener path forward for my fellow Longhorns and the world to enjoy,\u201d Doggett wrote in the statement.<\/p>\n
Rigdon said that the community response for the space has been overwhelmingly positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a great time watching over the last 10 days as the community (has) taken over their park and really made it their own,\u201d Rigdon said.<\/p>\n
The next step of phase two is the redesign of Sir Swante Palm Neighborhood Park, a family play area that borders Interstate 35 and the Confluence. Rigdon said the design will honor the Mexican-American history of the park. Additionally, part of the redesign will restore the century-old buildings there.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverwhelmingly, we heard about this desire for returning (the area) to a space for families in downtown,\u201d Rigdon said. \u201c(This is) a major hub, once again, for families to gather in this historic park.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new portion of the Waterloo Greenway bordering Lady Bird Lake opened June 6 to Austinites, featuring local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-342385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}