Three months after a group of freewheeling bike advocates marked off a portion of McGowen St. for cycling-only use, their work has vanished — effectively ceding the road back over to car traffic. The smaller photo above shows members of Bike Houston as well as other volunteers laying down boundary lines, directional arrows, and rubber barriers along the south side of the road at its junction with the Columbia Tap Trail between Burkett and Nettleton streets. At top is what that stretch looks like now from the opposite side of McGowen.
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The block-long lane Bike Houston installed is just one portion of a longer retrofit on McGowen between the Columbia Tap Trail and Hutchins St. that the city endorsed when it passed the Houston Bike Plan last year. You can see that full segment on the map below, which shows all the bikeways the plan puts forward for the Third Ward in blue:
Other Third Ward plans include a lane along Hutchins itself and an expansion of the existing lane (shown in purple) on Gray St. There’s also a more ambitious “Phase 2” plan which runs even wilder with ideas for the neighborhood, thought the city acknowledges they’d take a good deal longer to implement.
- Third Ward [Houston Bike Plan]
- Previously on Swamplot: Trailblazing a New McGowen St. Miniature Bike Lane Perpendicular to the Columbia Tap Trail
Photos: BikeHouston (bike lane); Swamplox inbox (current conditions). Map: City of Houston
