Riding the Trails in Dallas

I (Charlie) was in Dallas for Thanksgiving and decided I needed to do some more exploring of the ever growing Dallas Trails network.  My spouse’s parents live right near Central Expressway and Walnut Hill, so, I jumped on my bike ready to do a circuit of a good portion of central Dallas.  I found the most useful info from the Friends of the Santa Fe Trail group, which is a new rail trail south and east of White Rock Lake.

First, I rode north to Meadow Road which provided an easy crossing under Central Expressway, then left onto Greenville Road for a short but trafficiky ride (without sidewalks despite a major park / ballfield complex – grr!) over the the eastside of White Rock Creek.  There I actually headed north to check out the recently constructed Cottonwood Trail primarily so I could check out the under Central Expressway / 635 interchange trail crossing.  It’s pretty amazing how they threaded about 1/3 of a mile of trail under the interchange and while quite noisy, it was very impressive, as it provides a connection to the trail system north in Richardson.  Here’s a few photos showing the route and some of the artwork along the interchange walls.

View to the south on the TxDot Interchange trail

The Interchange trail flows right into the Cottonwood Trail – an spur of off the White Rock Creek Trail, with a number of links into existing parks as well as a light rail station connection (very nice)  So, the photos are showing the progression of the trail as I headed south on my bike.

Trailhead at Central Expressway

Light Rail Station / Parking Lot / Native Landscaping Next to Trail

Soon enough, I was back on the main (and older) section of the trail along White Rock Creek.  Yellow and red leaves were fluttering down as I continued south along the trail, which is subject to flooding.  Here and there I saw portions of the creek banks, which showed telltale signs of urbanizing.

At Northwest Highway, they are rebuilding a portion of the street, so I had to use a detour, riding east a short way to the light rail station entrance, using the traffic signals to cross Northwest Highway and then make my way on the street heading south to the park to hook up with the trail around White Rock Lake.

Once on the trail, I headed east to use the trail along the eastern shore. The wind was blowing from the south at about 10-15 miles per hour, so it was at times, a bit slow going.

I eventually passed the Arborteum and made it to the “falls” at the southern end of White Rock Lake, where I stopped to pause at the reworked plaza, then headed across the bridge, and then a bit north, before taking a left onto the new Santa Fe Trail heading south.

White Rock Lake Plaza at the falls

This is a new trail on an old railroad bed built just this past year and takes you through southeast Dallas to the edge of Deep Ellum somewhat abruptly.  There, I made my way a few blocks north to Elm where I headed west through the heart of Deep Ellum to Downtown Dallas.

For those of you worried about riding in traffic, it was Black Friday, but just after lunchtime and the traffic wasn’t too great in the downtown area. Once downtown, I stayed in the bus lane (always a good choice) along Elm and then headed north to see the progress on the forthcoming Woodall Rogers Park (aka the Park)

The park is showing some great progress with the work on the tunnel completed and the pipes for irrigation, structures for structures and improvements and everything going in.  There are even custom built holes for the trees to be planted (very cool).

Museum Tower Condos rises above the Park

One of many holes for trees to be planted.

After looking around a bit, I threaded my way over the American Airlines arena, then onto the Katy Trail and back up through Highland Park to the dreaded intersection at NorthPark mall again waiting to cross Northwest Highway.

A great ride overall – about 35 miles.  Looking good, Dallas.

Waller Boathouse Progress

The contractors are cranking on getting ready for the pour of the next floor of the Waller boathouse – we snapped a few quick pictures yesterday when we were picking up tools for today’s volunteer workday with C3 Presents on Barton Creek Greenbelt.

We Need Volunteers for Nov 19 Hill of Life Workday

We’re nearing the end of a year long effort to rebuild and restore portions of the Barton Creek Greenbelt main trail.  One area where we’ve started work but have plenty left to do is on the Hill of Life at the Camp Craft Road trailhead. Our Barton Creek Trails Corps Crew is out reworking drainage so the trail can drain better and not erode as much.

Example of a partially completed improvement for drainage. It needs to be built up more and packed with soil

We’re hosting a workday with our friends from Bicycle Sport Shop on Saturday, November 19th from 9 am to noon with lunch and a raffle thanks to Bicycle Sport Shop immediately following the workday. We need another 50 or so volunteers to come out and help us gather and pack rock and dirt into berms, clean out drainage channels.  We have about 15 places along the 1/3 mile of hilly trail and we’ll divide into teams to get it done.  There’s a ton of soil and rock within arms reach (or a very short walk).

Please SIGN UP HERE so we can bring enough tools and lunch.

Please wear long pants and sturdy shoes, bring a water bottle and if you have a wheelbarrow or rock bar, bring that too.  We’ll provide gloves, more tools and jugs of water.

in many cases, these water bars (something no longer used in trails) were improperly installed. We just need to extend them with rock and soil packed into place to drain water off of the trail

Think of all of the good food you’ll be able to enjoy guilt free on Thanksgiving after 3 good hours of hard work.  And think of how much you’ll be helping the trail.

Thank you.

There's still a bit of water in the creek near the bottom of the Hill of Life.

Bull Creek District Park Visit

Last week, I had a bit of time while on my way to a speaking engagement, so I stopped for a visit at Bull Creek District Park.  This is at the southern end of Bull Creek Greenbelt, is now the site of an 0n-leash dog park, and was the site of tremendous flooding in August 2010 where major amounts of rock and gravel changed the very nature of the falls and swimming hole.

That said, much of the restoration work started by the Bull Creek Foundation and Bull Creek Off-leash group and continued by American Youthworks E-Corps working under contract to the City’s Watershed Protection has remained and in most cases, is thriving despite the long hot summer and continuing drought.

I took some photos showing various areas, especially along the previously barren (dirt and rock) creek banks looking better than they have in years.  I also pulled out about 10 ligustrums that had sprouted up near one of the big oak trees.

The park is special to me as a longtime volunteer along Bull Creek and we dedicated the trail and an area to Inga Van Nynatten, a wonderful graduate student and then National Parks Service staffer who helped us get the Bull Creek Greenbelt Trail effort going back in mid-1990s and who died far too young in 2000.

What’s The Value of A Parks Volunteer?

Recently, we’ve been participating in public meetings and city commission presentations about the draft City of Austin Invasive Species Plan.  A number of questions have been asked specifically around the species choosen, who can use herbicides (only a certified applicator under direct supervision of city staff) and what is a volunteer worth in terms of time donated to the city.

We want to tackle that last question.

The Austin Parks Foundation organizes about 25-30 workdays a year and helps our 94 community groups who have adopted parks organize over a 100 more.  We provide tool lending, technical assistance, getting in touch with city staff for a specific request, try to arrange donations of mulch, get a water connection turned on and so forth.

Our volunteers do amazing work and while we have a lot of big volunteer events like It’s My Park Day (coming March 3, 2012!), a lot of them are smaller and on weekdays, working with 15-40 people from a company like Dell, AMD, CA Technologies, Pearson, Whole Foods, BMC Software and many others.  These companies give their employees time off to spend a few hours with a foundation staff person to remove invasives, gather rocks, plant trees, spread mulch or some other task.

We then report the number of volunteers and the number of hours that they worked back to the City of Austin Parks & Recreation Dept, who track the overall numbers for the year.  Generally, if the city wants to put a dollar amount on that volunteer labor donated, it’s $10.65 per hour.

The Austin Parks Foundation also provides grants for park projects to any group who has adopted a park.  These grants come from a percentage of ticket sales from the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival each year.  By contract, we spent those funds on park improvement projects on City of Austin parkland, subject to a grant approval process and approval from the City Parks and Recreation Department.

Any group that has adopted a park can apply for a grant anywhere from $500 to $50,000.  We generally fund about $300,000 in grants and projects every year.  Further, the grantees must match our funding with a combination of cash, in-kind contributions, including materials, professional services (like a backhoe operator or structural engineer who approves a kiosk) and volunteer labor.

Volunteer labor donated as part of a grant project is valued at – your guessed it – $10.65 per hour per the city guidelines.

We’ve felt this is far too low and wanted to see it raised.  With the Draft invasive species management plan, we’ve proposed raising the value of a volunteer hour to $21.36, the national average as determined by a national non-profit foundation called Independent Sector.  This is simply to put a dollar amount on the total number of hours that volunteers already contribute by working on city parklands removing invasive species.

A few people have asked whether we, as a non-profit, are paid by the city to organize and manage volunteer events.  The answer is no, we raise funds from our members, sponsors and grants to pay for staff time to organize and run volunteer workdays and in fact our entire operation of 2 full time and 2 part time staff.  Another question is do we get paid that $10.65 or $21.36 per hour for each volunteer by the city for running these workdays.  Again, the answer is no, we do not.  The city does not have such funds and if they did, they’d hire employees or contractors to do the work, something that they desparately need.  We work to bring volunteers out to help the city parks staff do the work that needs to be done and as a non-profit, it’s one of services we offer for free and fund through donations from members, sponsors and from grants.

So, what is the value of a parks volunteer to us? They are invaluable, really.  It’s not about the numbers of people, the hours put in or a number per hour that they volunteer for.  Our goal is offer opportunities that allow people to make a difference, get to know their fellow volunteers and have a positive experience so they’ll want to come back and volunteer again with us or other park group.

Our thanks to all of the thousands of volunteers who have helped us in parks through out this warm and dry year.  We really appreciate your help.  You are the Austin Parks Foundation.

Join APF, Austin Comm College for Project Build A Park Sat 9-12

The tenth annual Project Build A Park, an annual event put on by Austin Community College’s office of student life in conjunction with the Austin Parks Foundation, the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Dept, Waterloo Disc Golf and Southeast Austin Trails & Greenways (SEATAG) is this Saturday, November 5th from 9 am to noon and we need more volunteers!  Guerrero-Colorado River Park is under going a big expansion but we need help in spreading mulch, picking up trash and helping cut back from vines and bamboo along the trails, the under construction disc golf course and along the shoreline of the Colorado River.

Country Club Creek Trail back in late April 2010

Future Disc Golf course Guerrero-Colorado River Park - stone was all found on site as part of a big clean-up

We’ll work from 9 am to noon, start/finish is the Montopolis Youth Sports Complex at the Grove Blvd entrance (past ACC Riverside)  Register here. Please wear long pants, closed toed shoes and bring a water bottle.

Big piles of mulch awaiting spreading

Another view of a portion of the future disc golf course

Red Bud Isle Volunteer Workday Photos

Thanks to Volunteer Kyle who worked with the City of Austin Parks Department staff and some volunteers on a workday last Saturday at Red Bud Isle.  Here’s a before, during, and after photo set showing their work: