A look at my hometown and missed biking opportunities

I spent a week in my hometown of Beaumont, TX at the beginning of the month and I couldn't help but look at it anew with my eye for bicycle transportation and what I saw was TONS of unused potential.

I grew up on the west end of Beaumont, a part of town that was developed in the 1960's and 1970's when the town was booming and the oil fields were starting to dry up a bit. In order to turn the swampy oil fields into developable land, miles of drainage ditches were dug to drain the area into Hillebrandt Bayou and along these ditches were berms. 

When I was a kid these berms, along what everyone just called "the ditch", were how kids got around. There was an informal set of dirt trails along them and we would ride our bikes every where on them, learning how and where to cross the ditch or how to ride along the concrete side where there was no room on the berm; and then how to connect to the streets. When I got older and learned how to drive, I had to relearn how to get around town. 

When I was back I noticed that these informal trails are gone. Part of the reason is likely that kids just spend less time outside than I did and they bike fewer places; but I also noticed that more and more people have pushed their backyard fence back 10-12 feet to add the berm to their yard. This is probably illegal but the government probably had neither the inclination or budget to enforce its property line. Losing the informal trails is moving things in the wrong direction. A formal set of trails along the drainage system, the bayous and rivers, and the canals that bring fresh water from Pine Island Bayou to Port Arthur and other cities downstream, could be used to create a trail system that Davis, CA would envy. The government already owns the land, so that's one barrier that can be avoided. As the canals literally back up to people's back yards, the NIMBY effort might be extensive (especially for those who've squatted on the land) but for a city that consistently ranks among the country's most obese it's a fight worth having.

I'll note that in the last 5 or 6 years, the city has added a few hike/bike trails, but these are all loops that connect at a parking lot (or in one case to a parking lot and an abandoned housing development). They're fitness/recreation facilities, not transportation facilities. 

So I quickly mapped out what a trail network along the bayous, drainage canal, fresh water canals and Neches River would look like, including a few miles outside the city to create sensible connections, and it's pretty amazing (at least on the west end). I didn't even cover all the west end drainage canals because it was starting to get ridiculous.

Interestingly, Beaumont and the rest of the region created a 20 year bike plan in 2017, but it's kind of sad in my opinion. The network relies primarily on signed shoulders and shared roadways. It does include a single north-south trail along Hillebrandt Bayou and major bike lanes that go east-west or along the edges of town - though the northeast is pretty ignored.

In addition to under-utilizing the canal system, the region is missing a golden opportunity to build one of the state's best rail trails. 

The Sabine and East Texas Railway was built through the area in 1881, eventually running ~160 miles from Sabine Pass to Nacogdoches. By 1960, the 130 miles north of Beaumont was abandoned. While the rail grade in Beaumont would be hard to use now as it's been wiped out, almost everything from Pine Island Bayou north is still there (except for the part that is now flooded under Lake Sam Rayburn). It passes through Lumberton, Kountze, Woodville, Colmesneil and Zavalla and just to the east of Lufkin. There's even a 25 mile spur to the town of Chireno and another 30 mile one east to Calgary, TX. I remember hiking on one section of the mainline when I was in boy scouts. And here's the best part, I think the whole rail grade belongs to the state of Texas, which means they don't have to assemble the land.

I have to scratch my head about why a trail along an abandoned rail road through the north part of the study area isn't even mentioned.

There is a new, 5-year old hike bike trail in Kountze. It goes along the main highway (US287) from the north end of town to the entrance to the Big Thicket National Preserve. It's not particularly useful, and it's very loud, though in one place it does diverge from the road to follow under a power line, which is mildly more pleasant. The old railbed is about 700 feet to the west and would give some better separation from the highway. 

As someone who really loves rail trails, it almost physically hurts me to see this rail grade sit there where it is only marginally used. 

Comments

[contrarian]

Reading your description brought me back to my own childhood in Massachusetts. We had an aqueduct that ran through town to bring water to Boston. I spent many hours and miles riding my bike along the route of the aqueduct and the trails that ran off of it.

The trails were all single-track dirt and my bike was a 1970's five-speed road bike. I like to believe I invented mountain biking there.

[Brett Young]

I never did any bike activism until I started working on the bridge 5 years ago....except for one brief moment when I was 13.
Biking to school was horrible when I was a kid. And the county had just put this sort of sidewalk so I didn't have to ride into traffic. I had heard from my parents that due to insurance this was going to be taken away, so I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper. They called my parents verifying the letter and published it.
So after what you wrote above, I went on google maps to look at that area and its completely different. Still no bike lanes in my community, but at least this area is better with an actual sidewalk
This is Riverwoods, IL
https://goo.gl/maps/XoZEaCZ9ezM57DsUA