Austin bike route advice
January 20, 2017 7:21 AM Subscribe
I'm going to the Austin Women's march on Saturday and will be coming into town from San Antonio. There's a good possibility that my original plan for getting there (ride with a friend, park at a park and ride south of the city, and take the bus to the capitol) is going to fall through due to a friend's illness. I'm now thinking of a different plan that would involve bringing my bike, but need some help with a potential bike route.
Plan B would be to meet up with some different friends at the Austin Motel on Congress that morning and walk with them to the march. Instead of using the original park and ride option, I'm now wondering if I could take my bike, find parking in a residential area or business lot, bike to the motel meeting point, leave the bike there, and walk to the march. I don't know Austin well enough to plan a route, though. Any ideas on someplace to park my car south/west/east of the the motel and what route to take to get to Congress? I'm very comfortable riding in traffic, but also wouldn't mind using greenways to get close to my destination. I'd be happy riding 10 miles or so if I had to. I can come up to Austin on 35 or 281, but my hope would be to find parking without much hassle and use my bike to avoid traffic jams. Austin is never not congested, so I'm not sure what to expect in terms of traffic for march day.
Plan B would be to meet up with some different friends at the Austin Motel on Congress that morning and walk with them to the march. Instead of using the original park and ride option, I'm now wondering if I could take my bike, find parking in a residential area or business lot, bike to the motel meeting point, leave the bike there, and walk to the march. I don't know Austin well enough to plan a route, though. Any ideas on someplace to park my car south/west/east of the the motel and what route to take to get to Congress? I'm very comfortable riding in traffic, but also wouldn't mind using greenways to get close to my destination. I'd be happy riding 10 miles or so if I had to. I can come up to Austin on 35 or 281, but my hope would be to find parking without much hassle and use my bike to avoid traffic jams. Austin is never not congested, so I'm not sure what to expect in terms of traffic for march day.
The Barton Hills neighborhood is south of Zilker Park and has a dedicated bike lane down to the Hike & Bike trail. You can park in my neighborhood and ride your bike.
Try catching a ride with ATXPeanut. If that doesn't pan out, feel free to drop me a line and I can give you better directions (and if you want to park in front of my house, feel free, but it will add about a mile to your ride each way).
posted by Seamus at 8:00 AM on January 20, 2017
Try catching a ride with ATXPeanut. If that doesn't pan out, feel free to drop me a line and I can give you better directions (and if you want to park in front of my house, feel free, but it will add about a mile to your ride each way).
posted by Seamus at 8:00 AM on January 20, 2017
Sounds like you may already have an alternative, but if you do wind up parking and riding, try parking on a side street around S. 5th & Mary St. I don't think there is any neighborhood permit parking around there (also, it's by Thai Fresh, a good restaurant), and I can always find a spot when I'm around there.
You can then cut east on Mary or Annie to Congress, and then north to the Austin Motel.
posted by adamrice at 8:45 AM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
You can then cut east on Mary or Annie to Congress, and then north to the Austin Motel.
posted by adamrice at 8:45 AM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's great to have a plan, but don't stress about parking too much. There are 32,000 marchers RSVP'd on Facebook. That's a tiny fraction of the number of people that flood downtown Austin during events like ACL or SXSW. It'll be fine.
posted by donajo at 10:19 AM on January 20, 2017
posted by donajo at 10:19 AM on January 20, 2017
Response by poster: Thanks for all the route and parking tips, and for the offer of a ride! This generosity was especially uplifting today. With that said, I think I've got it sorted now. Now, I just gotta make a sign . . .
posted by megancita at 6:04 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by megancita at 6:04 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ATX Peanut at 7:33 AM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]