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In the first three weeks since the Wishbone Bridge opened last month, the city has tracked almost 175,000 people crossing it on foot or bike. During February, that bridge was the most popular of 42 trails monitored by the City of Austin’s ‘Eco Counter’ dashboard, which measures the use of city-maintained trails. Wishbone accounted for 16% of the traffic over all of those trails combined.
The long-awaited completion of the bridge, which connects the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail across the Colorado River just before the Longhorn Dam, was a wish come true for many Austinites.
Jim Newsome, 45, rode the bus to the ceremony from his home in North Austin. He said he often rode loops on the Butler trail for exercise on both his unicycle and bicycle and that he’s excited to be able to bypass the Pleasant Valley vehicle bridge that runs alongside the new crossing.
“That’s always been the least pleasant part,” Newsome said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, now I have to get up on the road, it’s windy, it’s by traffic, a lot of times it’s narrow and crowded.’ This will be much more pleasant, for sure.”
In interviews, several people mentioned concerns about the safety of crossing the Pleasant Valley Bridge on a stretch of the road that the city identified in 2020 as a “High-Injury Roadway.”
Tawny Villain, the adult programs coordinator with the Govalle-based Ghisallo Cycling Initiative, helped lead a celebratory ride to the bridge organized by Get There ATX as part of the Feb. 7 opening festivities. She said that safety worries had made crossing the river there a headache during group rides.
“You would have to make sure you had a very solid plan,” Villain said. “Now, that doesn’t have to be a consideration anymore.”
Robin Stallings, the executive director of the cycling advocacy group BikeTexas, connected the bridge to a more than decade-long trend of the local government trying to promote alternatives to cars, including by designing safer and more pleasant options for bike commutes.
“If we can make it so attractive that people want to get on their bike and ride, then that’s one less car and less congestion for those that can’t get out of their car,” Stallings said.
In his newsletter, the Watson Wire, Mayor Kirk Watson said he was “very proud” of the city’s work on the bridge, which he noted had been completed on budget and ahead of schedule. That’s taking into account the $4 million that Rep. Greg Casar secured for the project after it initially overran its budget.
The trail already connected several key points along the river from east to west, like city hall, the main library branch, and both of the city’s lauded spring-fed pools. But the Wishbone Bridge allows it to also serve as a key north-south connection for bike commuters like Lydia Carroll, 51, and her partner, Paul Ceseski, 58.
The pair, who said they live in the Holly neighborhood, both bike to classes at Austin Community College’s Riverside Campus. Carroll is taking an olympic weightlifting class and Paul studies blacksmithing. They said that they won’t miss Pleasant Valley Road and expect to cross the river more often on the new bridge.
“It’s gonna change our lives,” Carroll added. “We’re gonna be biking across this two times a day, if not more, forever,” she added.
Villain, who said she was planning many more group rides across the river with Ghisallo, said she’s planning to show the bridge to a friend who is coming to visit.
“She’s like, ‘I only have time for a short bike ride,’” Villain said. “I’m like, ‘Great. We’re going to go check out Wishbone Bridge, we’re going to get a treat, and then we’re done.”
