Bee Cave presents vision for trails project

City continues to make progress on its plan for designing connectivity.

Planning for a trail along RM 620 is well underway, Bee Cave city staff members told the City Council during a recent meeting, when the newly updated Comprehensive Plan also was presented.

The staff is in discussions with Target, Home Depot and A+ Federal Credit Union and is finalizing the language in an easement agreement, the end result of which will be a paved or granite pathway between the big box stores.

The planned Canyonside Trail, built by Ash Creek Homes within the under-construction Canyonside subdivision with developer Scott Morledge, is nearly complete. The final stage of the trail is under construction.

The city has been working on its connectivity plan, a long-range idea for a network of pedestrian walkways, granite hiking paths and bike lanes along roads. The plan is largely centered on creating pathways around the Hill Country Galleria and the Shops at the Galleria.

The plan requires workwithcommercial and residential developers, who in some cases might provide easements for trails and other times bear the cost of construction.

It alsosuggests building trails within floodplains and utility and power line easements.

“The easiest ... trails are along the highway,” City Planning Director Lindsey Oskoui said during the Nov. 22 council meeting. “It gets sticky when you try to negotiate with developers to get a trail to run through the middle of (a development). At least along the roadway there’s a 75-foot buffer, and they can’t develop in that area, anyway.”

Within the next five years, according to the trails plan, first priorities are a half-mile route through the Morningside subdivision, the south loop of the Shops at the Galleria, a bike lane through the Ladera subdivision, a path along Bee Cave Parkway from Ladera to Bee Cave Central Park, a path from Falconhead Boulevard to Bee Cave Parkway and the path from the big box stores on RM 620 to the Hill Country Galleria.

The Economic Development Board has allocated some funding to upgrade pedestrian crossings, though details are not decided, Oskoui said.