Houston Area Bike Trails

[beetlemania]

Anyone got any suggestions for good hike / bike trails around town? Just bought a bike recently, and took it through the Terry Hershey park, which runs along Buffalo Bayou between Beltway 8 and Highway 6. This is a great park (long, well-maintained trails with some actual up-and-down terrain) that I didn't know much about before. Any other "hidden gems" out there?

[UrbaNerd]

Try the Buffalo Bayou trail, from Downtown, to Memorial park (I think).

[jmancuso]

terry hershey

[midtown_resident]

If you are looking for offroad - check out the trails at Memorial Park - i haven't found better in houston yet.

[Subdude]

On the east side there is a rail-to-trail path that will take you out along the ship channel. Mostly I just like riding on the streets, though.

[kjb434]

Also, White Oak Bayou from TC Jester and 11th to well north of I-610 is a hike-n-bike path. This is paved and is more of an urban path. The portion by I-610 goes underneath the roadways. North of I-610 along the bayou there are ball fields and a frisbee golf course.

[beetlemania]

Thanks for the suggestions (and keep 'em coming!)

I noticed that there are some additional trails in and around Addicks Reservoir that continue west of Terry Hershey park (just west of Highway 6). Unfortunately the trail switches from asphalt to gravel here, so probably just mountain biking at this point.

Also, I used to run the trails along Buffalo Bayou between downtown and Shepherd, i.e. along Allen Parkway and Memorial. There are some bikers here, but the trail, at least a couple of years ago, was torn up and uneven in spots and didn't seem ideal for bikers. Any chance they've cleaned up this area?

And, I noticed there's a long trail along Braes Bayou. The Harris County Precinct 3 web site says the hike / bike trail begins near Gessner and goes all the way to McGregor Park near U of H. That'd be fun to take on some weekend!

So apparently the Houston bayous are good for something. Here's hoping that City / County officials continue to restore these areas to provide recreational activities such as hiking and biking trails.

[Subdude]

The city is still plugging away on its bikeway program. Here is a link to the website with listings of all the designated routes:

Houston bikeways

I think they can also send you a map. Be warned, though, some of the on-street bike routes really aren't maintained too well and have a lot of trash, gravel, etc.

[kjb434]

With all the streams that run through there city, there is ample room to connect the city with pedestrian/bike pathways. HCFCD requires at least a 30 foot maintenance berm on the edge of all its channels. Some really older ones don't have one, but all the major bayous do. These berms are where many of the bike trails are built.

Also, would you believe that TxDOT is the party responsible for building this facilities? Because federal money is used to build these facilities and they are used for transportation purposes (movement of people), TxDOT has to adminster the design and construction. They work with the community leaders to produce the concept and move forward.

Greens Bayou is going to get one through the Greenspoint area. A piece is already built, but it will add up to 3 miles of trails to this system. It would be cool if it would go all the way to Willowbrook Mall too.