Exploring more Dutch-inspired cycle network facilities w/ a new Austin resident (on-bike interview)

Come along for the ride as Joshua Funches, a new resident of Austin, and I ride from one of Austin’s most bike-friendly communities, the Mueller development, to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Transit Station and Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and then onto the Boggy Creek Trail. It was a fun one, and I hope that you will enjoy the ride.

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– Part One of the Ride: https://youtu.be/ViVVxAw4DHU

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Background:
Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I’m a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

Since 2010, I’ve been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a “Culture of Activity” for “All Ages & Abilities.”

The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

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Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2024

Hey everyone welcome to the active towns Channel my name is John simmerman and this is part two of my ride with Joshua funes a new Resident to the Austin area from Philadelphia and in part one we were exploring the cycling infrastructure in the Miller neighborhood left off taking in Miller’s

New Bike and Skate Park which is a huge hit for kids young and old here in part two we’ll be leaving the Miller neighborhood on our way to the Martin Luther King transit station and then onto the boggy creek trail I hope you enjoy the ride fantastic so I haven’t even explored

These neighborhoods over here this is what I explored on uh roller skates on roller skates I haven’t even been over here cuz it’s all brand new no you literally go down there and it’s all new so let’s let’s go let’s go down here just a little bit um we’ll we’ll come

Back and go down and take in a bit I want to point out though because we haven’t ridden on any streets like this which are again there’s no bicycling infrastructure here we’re just rolling down a small Street uh you know a neighborhood street and because of the dimensions and because of the low

Volumes and because of the slow speeds this can be part of the bicycle Network even though it’s not identified as a bicc Network it can be let’s turn right here and just get into the neighborhood and hey a quick note to my Dutch fans I totally know that these

Streets are not narrow from the perspective of what you see in the Netherlands but for North America this is actually pretty good and again same thing we’re we’re in an environment where uh you don’t need necessarily bike lanes because it’s going to be a sloweed environment low volume of Motor Vehicles

And therefore can be you know a a comfortable environment for people to ride bikes in this is crazy they’re still literally building like everything right around yeah no this is the the the last of it yeah you’ll also notice too that there’s Alleyways so these homes are all serviced by alleys we’ll turn

Left here and we’ll go past this park on the right so another neighborhood park right here that looks it’s already looking good and then you then you take a look look at you know the fact that yeah these are it’s denser housing housing market so this is where I start the

Question that thing you said earlier like um when you said like the affordable housing is very identical to the you know regular Market housing yeah you can’t tell none there’s no way to know which of these units is is Affordable or market rate it’s integrated in that’s

Very crazy and cuz that’s one of the the the stupidest things that we ever did with quot quot unquote affordable housing is make it look like affordable housing yeah you make it look like affordable housing and you say oh the people who are you know quote unquote

The poor people they’re over there we’re going to turn left here yeah so earlier you were asking about you know the different trails and whatnot so so we have over here you can see the network of trails and lakes and Pathways and natural areas as you can see right down in

Here so there’s lots of opportunities for kids to experience nature go fishing in a pond see the Ducks and the geese playing yep yep this is this is uh where I almost fell over because I if you go down there there’s like a the natural walking trail like you mentioned and I

Wasn’t looking where I was going went right off the smooth Trail right on it and I was like whoa yeah almost went face first now we’re also rolling past you know some larger single family home so there’s a good mixture of denser housing types Town Homes uh row houses apartment complexes

As well as single family homes there’s I feel like it gives you the luxury that you’re looking for mhm the privacy and also like the space all Allin one yes and you feel comfortable which I think is the ideal ideal type yep Y and within a very close distance you

You’ll also be able to get to um you know a more an even denser type of housing type where you could get four and five stories uh apartment complexes all of that within five minute bike ride from here so good stuff okay let’s uh let’s go down and check out this good

Stuff here all right all right yeah you’re right there is a school here it’s called The Rise school yeah this is what I was talking about I had noticed this and I was like I thought to myself wow yeah big brothers and big sisters is right here that’s

Cool all right didn’t even notice that and then Salvation Army has a a a location here so yeah some nice stuff right right Here and then again we’ve got our protected and intersection and then a separated bike way feeding right into our skate park bike park so awesome it sure is and you saw the amount of people rolling up as we were leaving yeah you know what I was looking for

Though one thing I was looking for was diversity in in like the population there yeah I think I’ve only seen like one Hispanic family but I was still looking for others you know yeah um yeah without without a doubt um we need to be able to get a situation where you know

People of color feel a lot more comfortable in this environment because literally they live right here right across the street that’s what I’m saying because like sometimes they tend to exclude themselves which because it’s not normal it’s not normally what we’ve been able to have access to so it’s

Almost like either good to good too good to be true or not enough people are there so I’m not sure if I’m going go yeah exactly and you see this like we’re riding side by side in a bicycle lane yeah this is really nice yes yeah

Exactly here we are side by side in a bicycle lane yeah I think when I was here the first time I have to go find the videos but some of this wasn’t here yeah so this road right here that’s Tillery so that’s where the school is that we were looking at yeah

That’s a long wait time there’s a good look at the natural surface Trail right off here on the right and you you can see just how much Nature has been allowed to you know grow up in this area too so this building that you see off to the left

Here past the tracks you’ll see that they went ahead and put in the red the Terracotta colored bike lane oh yeah oh yeah integrated it right into the development we’re going to make a right Yep this is this is what it was I think a good place to stop is right up here so something I wasn’t used to yeah was like right outside my home or my apartment being a separated bike lane that takes me right kind of into the streets where

I need to go with more either protected or separated bikeways that was amazing yeah I was like wow yeah I couldn’t believe that I was like that’s so awesome and like it’s almost as if it’s integrated in a way where it’s accepting you know yeah it’s not like off or like

Beaten somewhere it’s wellmaintained right it’s like kept up to date and then it’s intentionally put somewhere where if I go out there like you kind of see like traffic slow down purposefully because they know like oh this is a common thing right or like I’ve used

This before kind of thing so I feel like folks kind of understand the vibe of where that’s coming from they just let you go you know yeah yeah never been beeped at yeah and and this one has been around for a while you look at it and

You see the concrete here is just the normal gray color um if this had been built you know in the Last 5 Years uh this would have been the terracotta color because they would have the city would have had you know worked with them and said hey let’s make sure we use the

Terracotta color now I’m going to show you something interesting too so you were staying in this area here yep down this way where the you see these uh this these families these kids and moms coming there’s a there’s a horrible Hill over there there’s a horrible Hill there but notice there’s

Uh the the the shared use path continues down that way you eventually get to a street which is considered a uh a bicycle friendly neighborhood street or bicycle Boulevard type Street let’s go check it out because that street actually then takes us back over to the Miller neighborhood

Where we were just at ah all right and so there’s an in other words we were on mayor and we were on the separated Bikeway with the the the you know Flex post but we could have also gone through a quiet leafy neighborhood over in this

Area to get to the uh that development yeah see exactly so let’s go check that out and then we’ll come back and I want to show you how this facility right here this bike way connects right to Transit and so for some people they can actually lock their bike up in a covered

Internal Bike Locker and then jump on the train and take the train either downtown or take the train All the Way North up to the city of Leander all right all right wow check it out almost something like Philadelphia oh you’re talking about like where they’re walking

Up there yep ah I never did that I was always coming down here to the right and going out that way yep but I did notice that immediately I was like ah there’s several ways to get to where I want to go yeah since they’re playing on here we’ll just take the street

On we’ll go through this uh pinch point and then stop and we’ll talk about it so see what this is right here this is a traffic calming pinch point that they have created with these Flex posts eventually it could be done in more permanent infrastructure but again this

Is the Cherrywood uh neighborhood area bike priority Boulevard where they are it’s a TR traffic calmed Street a traffic calmed area neighborhood 20 mph is the recommended and desired speed limit through here and the reason why we do these things in these types of neighborhoods because the the volumes

Are low enough and the speeds are low enough and when we can put infrastructure like this down that’s lighter quicker cheaper it helps to slow motor vehicles down make it that much more comfortable example perfect example right here you know the motor vehicle driver can stay behind be patient and a

Person can can be able to ride comfortably and be able to make it to that same neighborhood that we were in over there in Miller yeah so it’s a different treatment it’s similar to what we were talking about when we were riding on the quiet residential streets in

Miller it’s just that this is an older neighborhood an old older facility so it’s like a different iteration yeah yeah it’s a different iteration of it so there’s more there’s more you know there there’s more than one way to go about doing this you’re right you’re right

Okay cool let’s uh let’s turn around and head uh down so that we can show you the MLK uh station and uh the housing you’ll notice that you’ll you’ll start to see more uh apartments and denser housing and where people can live in what we call a Tod a Transit oriented

Development Transit all right that’s new to me I haven’t heard of that one that would have been nice to know funny enough because I feel like this would have been a fast way to get to HB but like you know Google didn’t recommend that way to me and I think that’s what I

Was using at the time yeah it’s one of our biggest challenges is that uh our bike mapping and routing systems don’t often times don’t take into consideration just quiet residential streets yeah and that that would have been a huge help y like a real huge help

Yeah yeah for sure hey there hey good job good job go Dad okay yeah just like a I’m I kind of can’t get over it cuz it was so different yeah imagine kind of just waking up and being like yeah like I can get to where I need to go because

Something’s literally built right outside for me to use to get where I need to go safely yeah and then it gets highlighted once I get out the neighborhood yeah and now you’re going to kick yourself too when you see just how close this is to the whole network of the

Boggy creek trail yeah that was the one thing I can’t remember no yes I I think I know what you’re talking about actually now that I think about it there was some train station and you kind of cross over something like that that’s the buggy Creek y yep I remember having

To use that when I was here yep and that can get you all the way to the petalis two-way cycle track and then from there you can basically get all the way to downtown all all I’m not sure where the cycle track is well we we’ll check on

Time and see if uh maybe we ride to there and that’s where I send you back yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah cuz I haven’t been back on this Trail since I got here which is you know just it’s not it’s just not in the way I have the

Walnut what you’re going to see right ahead of you is brand new ah yes it is so when you were here before this this was not here yeah yeah look at that yep so again this development created this facility and put it in so so this this

Is brand new cuz this just got done and then up ahead you’ll see it’s at the transitional stage now where the lane markings are gone and these little Tabs are in place so that the city can uh you know reestablish you see ahead reestablish the two two-way cycle track

Watch out for the sign there yeah this definitely wasn’t here so this this is all you know because of all the construction in the neighborhood here this has all been sort of you know in disarray um but this will eventually be reestablished as a 2-way cycle track and

Um we’re actually going to get it into a a construction area here so we’ll have to take the lane with the motor vehicles in just a moment yep looks like that part hasn’t changed but eventually yeah that’ll be all protected separated facilities right there and then you see the train tracks

Right down there so that’s the transit line and we’ve got our Green that’s a nice thing right there I want to see if I could catch it actually yep yeah so this is the Martin Luther King station so what do you think very good yeah bike parking bike parking train double way y housing right here we’ve

Got all all of this housing here as we were talking about that is the to the transit oriented development that’s what it was to Transit oriented devel Transit oriented development uh I also call TOS another kind of to I call it a trail oriented development all right that’s an

Interesting one is that cool yeah all oriented around the trails all this one is a little bit of a combo of a little bit of both you know exactly and again more traffic calming infrastructure lighter quicker cheaper the flex post design that can always be redone later in concrete

Yep I think that’s one thing technology has gotten very well yep Implement something and fix it later yep we need to take way more advantage of that one yes yeah and so we’re going to follow these these two Riders here my cousin actually lives right down

That way all right see this is the kind of thing I want to show to my family when a few of them get a chance to come down here like all this opportunity and like want to see if they just would feel comfortable just from looking at or or what they think you

Know initially yeah yeah as folks that are not too too into infrastructure and stuff you know they’re just you know they just live you know which is the way it should be yep so now we’re on the the boggy creek trail and we see you know this infrastructure sort of shared between um

People walking people biking you’ll see off to the left there’s neighborhoods right over there yep I hear stuff going on over there yeah looks somebody’s getting a new roof and then this is a community garden here yep I remember just trying to speed through here on an ebike and I was like

Ah a noral bike is [Laughter] faster oh yeah actually so this is one of the best parts yeah so we had an Airbnb yeah for one week I stayed over there and then for the other week I stayed down here to the right somewhere down there

Okay we had to transfer some of our stuff from one location to the other and it made most sense to take this Trail because it literally went from that side where we just came from the right uh all the way through here and down there and

Just bam you were just like right where you need to go that’s what I’m talking about when the first thing you think of like what’s the easiest way in a bike actually comes to mind right that and I had a ebike too so I could just transfer

Everything I needed got my backpack put everything in and then bam transfer everything from one location to the next and we were done yeah that is that’s wicked yeah yeah that’s super cool yeah you also notice too that you know in this neighborhood here we’ve got you

Know the ball fields that we’re rolling past the parks that we’re rolling past so this is a great example of how the trail system is able to connect community members to you know these activity assets these these ball yeah once again that connectivity wow wow wow I think just Silo does work around

Here yeah I think I always came out here and went down that way so I don’t think I’ve ever come down this way okay cool so this part of the trail is again an older portion of the trail we can tell because again you don’t see the red

Paving um and then up ahead here we’ll we’ll pick up with the Terracotta colored there you go so boom right here and now you have a separation of the bike facility versus The Pedestrian facility and again a really nice high quality uh infrastructure and again you can see the

Connectivity here off to the left with the neighborhoods so they are able to access the trail very easily yep and then if you look to the right you’ll see there’s the train tracks again so that’s part of the red line and this is part of what they call the Red

Line Trail Red Line Trail very nice and again the the vision of the redline Trail is to follow the red line all the way up the 30 miles up to Leander that’s city of Leander that’s a really good Vision actually that’ll be so nice 30 mile 30 m Trail right there yep exactly

Wow this art though yeah and you’ll notice you know even on some of depicted on some of the art here we’re very much in a black and brown community area throughout here um throughout multiple times during the year the um the the you know communities will have major celebrations out here

Like the juneth celebration in this particular Park on this particular Trail is freaking off the RoR scale it’s so much fun and you know on I would say On Any Given um summer holiday or summer weekend it’s you know you just see you know tons of of families out here

Enjoying the environment yeah now we just transition to another uh Trail type so we had a little bit of natural surface Trail there and and so we have that combination of paved Trails natural surface Trails very very common throughout this this area and so again we’ll get on another natural surface

Trail you got to appreciate these trees in the summer and the trees in the summer absolutely my goodness yep here be life saving and we will actually be rolling right past the um the area where Galo has um you know some of their bikes where they do some of their programming out of

Yeah which you may have seen in the past I don’t know I did I got a chance to ride with them and uh we did like a whole little video I think I even did a giveaway too actually yeah which was really nice I’ll see if I could find

This so I can show it to you a little part I think it was just Silo too like they somewhere around here like there used to be like a little hump and I think it was a construction hump or whatever yeah uh I think they’ve removed

It but I have to double check okay but I thought that was really interesting like you know I came back and things once again are constantly changing here while they’re upgrading this area yeah it almost makes me feel like a local yeah yeah for sure I think it was April that I came

Around which it was really nice weather okay yeah April’s typically a pretty nice time of year yeah and right up here is is part of the just solo foundation’s cycling initiatives group over I feel scared for her on the crutches I feel like she should probably be on a ebike or

Something I’ve slipped on leaves before and oh my God it really hurt yeah it hurt actually I ruined one my one of my jerseys that way they did remove it no way yeah it was right here are right here what and they fixed this whole path right here wait did they yes they

Did what no way so this is a little art installation here over here too um you’ll see where this guy on the scooter is okay coming down so that’s petalis and that is a 2-way uh separated cycle path separated with flex posts and that petalis trail and that’s where the

The the gals or the the couple that we were riding behind they’re continuing off in the distance there on petalis if you stay on that it’ll take you all the way to the lake all the way to ladybird Lake Lady Bird yeah and it’ll take you all the way to

The butler hike and bike trail or it’ll also take you to as we mentioned earlier Fifth Street and Sixth Street and then you can turn and then head towards downtown and reconnect with the the Red Line Trail yeah yeah so very good sir good stuff thanks for riding with me

Today no thanks for having me this is really awesome I got a chance to explore and we we got a chance to check it out on bicycles any final thoughts on what you’ve seen today uh one one 10 out of 10 need to do again and two um definitely just

Enjoying the fact that I have access to it like it’s just here yeah and I think that that’s really important nothing more than that I just have access to it that’s what I like yeah it’s really empowering when cities create environments which make it welcoming for everyone you know all all ages all

Abilities um you don’t have to be a quote unquote cyclist you don’t have to be somebody with high skills to be able to take it and enjoy it take enjoy it and and have it be something that’s accessible for for literally everyone in society that’s the whole point is it

Needs to be truly truly welcoming for people so that’s exactly what I was talking about yeah yeah like if I introduce this to someone like what do I want them to feel like what’s one of the first things I want them to say to themselves and to feel welcomed as one

Of those things cuz that’s the that’s what I had felt like in some areas and other areas I didn’t feel so welcome but I it’s definitely getting there yeah good stuff great hey thank you so much man hey yay awesome yay hey thank you all so much for tuning in I hope you

Enjoyed this ride with Joshua funches and if you did please hey give it a thumbs up leave a comment down below and share it with a friend and if you haven’t done so already be honored to have you subscribed to the channel just click on that subscription button down

Below and ring the notifications Bell well until next time this is John signing off by wishing you much activity health and happiness cheers and again sending a huge thank you out to all my active towns ambassadors supporting the channel on patreon buy me a coffee YouTube super thanks as well as making

Contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active Town store every little bit adds up and it’s much appreciated thank you all so much