Texas is planning a continuous 160 km trail network from The Alamo in San Antonio to the state capitol in Austin.
The Great Springs Trail will connect the four great springs of central Texas as part of a major project to preserve 20,000 hectares of land around one of the most critically important aquifers in the United States.
The four springs—Barton Springs, San Marcos Springs, Comal Springs, and San Antonio Springs are located at points along the proposed trail corridor.
The corridor’s importance has been recognised for millennia, with one of the earliest maps that features the four springs depicted in the petroglyph rock art of the early people of the Lower Pecos.
Currently, the area encompassing the corridor makes up one of the fastest growing regions in the U.S., threatening to exacerbate critical water, land, and wildlife challenges.
This has been an impetus to usher forward the development of the trail plan, which seeks to unify a national park-scale network of over 42 existing trails and greenways plans.
A feasibility study indicates an estimated 5,500 walkers and runners and 4,800 bike riders are expected to use the trail each day.
An estimated 1.1 million non-local users per year—who will spend money on food, entertainment, bicycle rental, lodging, and the like—will visit the trail.
Trail planners are expecting to use the opportunity of the trail construction to utilise the natural infrastructure of conserved land to reduce catastrophic flood damage and save millions of dollars per year.