At a December 1 ribbon cutting at the recently completed Post Oak Street trail head, Mayor Gus Garcia, Austin Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) head Jesus Olivares, and BCNA president Sean Kelly commended the hard work of American Youth Works (AYW) volunteers, who cleared, constructed and beautified West Bouldin Creek Park. Take a walk around the spruced up park and admire its recent blossoming under PARD management.
The project was part of a $51,000 City County Workforce Development contract with AYW, involving a crew of 10 youths and trained crew leader working for over 4 months, 5 hours per day, with 3 hours' classroom studies per day.
The results? Wow!
Cedar chip nature paths now lace though the area's east bank, and AYW
workers have removed 
trash, and
thinned out undergrowth, allowing the return of native species.
In addition to the chip nature trails, check the creek's east bank (between the Post Oak and S. Sixth at Gibson entrances). Here you'll find an inner urban wonderworld where volunteers have ingeniously worked the sloping terrain and rocks into an ambling packed earth trail resembling nothing so closely as a scene from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.
Charming stone stairways, benches, walls, embankments, and erosion-controlling drainage gutters admirably survived November's rains and flooding, and harken back to Austin's early settlement and more tranquil times.
In fact, with the underbrush cleared, remnants of early settlers' homesites
are once again visible. Most notable is a stone water well still cordoned
off from the trail by an early homeowner's rusted wire fence. Even the Union
Pacific train rumbling 
down
the tracks that mark the greenway's western border evoke an earlier era
before automobiles and airplanes dominated our movement and schedules.
Sure, you'll still see styrofoam and other debris washed up on the creek's banks, along with empty beer cans and other trash near the lean-tos of recent homeless squatters. But with the increased clearing and recreational use, the homeless are encouraged to move on, and the volume of their trash is dwindling.
Future plans include a natural surface bike path paralleling the railroad line, and a low water crossing at the entrance to the park's 6th street (north of Gibson) entrance. The more ambitious goal of building a footbridge crossing the creek from the park's Post Oak (north of the Elks Lodge) entrance has been put on hold for lack of funds.
It's hard to place a value on the East and West Bouldin Creek parklands so close to our homes, yet so far from Austin's snarling bustle and divisive growth. But a stroll or a bike ride on these trails will convince you to join your neighbors in ensuring their preservation and continued enhancement.