HOUSTON: I felt like I was pedaling toward Oz.
I was pedaling through flood-plain fields filled with blossoming wildflowers as the Emerald City’s, er, Houston’s, skyscrapers kept getting closer and closer, taller and taller. It is an impressive approach to downtown Houston, one you can even find in postcards.
Paved and unpaved trails flank the urban stream, Buffalo Bayou. The waterway was a muddy brown and the flow was high from recent rains that had triggered flooding.
Welcome to Buffalo Bayou Park, a $58 million, 160-acre park that sits west of the city’s downtown. It is popular with walkers, joggers, bicyclists, paddlers and outdoor lovers.
The refurbished park with a heavy dose of landscape restoration was completed in late 2015 with the theme “Buffalo Bayou’s Back.” What has been created is a fascinating mosaic of scenic landscapes, trails, parks, bridges, art spaces, pavilions and green space in the heart of America’s fourth-largest city.
The park is actually a string of smaller and once-overgrown parks now connected via the trails and the stream. The old areas were difficult to access and were not always considered safe. The new park is accessible to 500,000 people within a 30-minute bike ride and 44,000 households within a 10-minute walk.
The new park is a major attraction in Houston with its own bat bridge, a historic cemetery, outdoor concert space, picnic areas, play areas, event space, dog park (one of the largest in the U.S.), two pedestrian bridges over the bayou, historic Allen’s Landing, a visitor center, a skate park, kayak and bike rentals, new trails, signature blue trail lighting, Buffalo Bend Nature Park with its wetlands habitats, new outdoor artwork and lots of gardens.
The park stretches 2.3 miles from its western terminus at Shepherd Drive to downtown Houston. Efforts to expand are continuing. The plan is to add another 7.5 miles of trail to the Turning Basin in Houston’s harbor.
It is a park that relies heavily on its rolling topography, featuring long views and allowing visitors to get close to the water.
Buffalo Bayou was once little more than an open sewer.
The stream sits 25 to 30 feet below the surrounding highways and is a key element of Houston’s stormwater-management plan. Many of the park features have been elevated to keep them away from floods, a frequent occurrence.
Houston actually gets more rain than Seattle, usually from big thunderstorms.
The bayou played a key role in Houston’s history. The Allen Brothers in 1836 traveled up the stream, acquired land and ran ads to attract new settlers to swampy East Texas. That gave Houston its Bayou City nickname.
Creating the new centerpiece urban park involved the city, the Harris County Flood Control District, the Kinder Foundation and the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, a nonprofit group founded in 1986.
Houston also has plans to improve other bayous in its urban area.
In the past, Buffalo Bayou was turned into a ditch. But that has been changed through the park project.
Some of its natural meanders have been rebuilt and plantings have been added to make the flood plain more absorbent to help control runoff.
The plan was to create flood benches that allow water to flow over the banks more easily and create places where silt can drop out. Workers will later remove the deposited silt. Mowed lawns were replaced with meadows and water-loving trees.
Silt-covered trails, benches and park features have been a longtime problem, along with debris and pollutants.
The new pedestrian bridges made the park far easier to access and increased visitation. Today the stream is more open and easier to navigate, and the event and entertainment spaces are drawing people back to the bayou.
There is plenty to see. An estimated 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats live under the Waugh Drive Bridge and fly off at dusk in search of insects. It is a big attraction.
Trails on both sides of the stream duck under highway bridges at the edge of the city’s core. A series of winding bridges were built to cross the stream.
There is public art scattered throughout the park. Tolerance, by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, is seven figures (one for each continent) sculpted from world alphabets.
For information, go to www.buffalobayou.org or call 713-752-0314. A mobile app can guide you through the park.
Beyond the bayou
But there’s a lot more to see and do in Houston, one of the youngest and most diverse cities in the U.S. with 1.9 million residents, 6 million in the urban area.
Houston is a Big Oil city, an arts city, an education and medical city, a high-tech city, a space city. It is also an unzoned city, marked by sprawl, crowded freeways and lots of strip malls. It relies heavily on air conditioning, especially in the summer when the heat and humidity can be stifling.
Interestingly, Houston residents eat out more frequently than other Americans: four times a week. Houston has become one of America’s great dining cities with more than 5,000 restaurants.
Houston’s Museum District features 19 museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Natural History, the Contemporary Arts Museum and the Children’s Museum. For maps, hours and admissions, go to www.houstonmuseumdistrict.org.
The Space Center Houston is a major attraction for families. It is 23 miles south of downtown at the Johnson Space Center. A general admission ticket will enable you to see the world’s largest collection of moon rocks and lunar samples plus more than 400 space artifacts. You can also observe mission control centers past and present.
More in-depth tours that last up to five hours are available for space buffs, if you are willing to pay the steep admission prices of up to $90. Basic admission is $24.95 for adults. For information, go to www.spacecenter.org.
For tourist information, go to www.visithoustontexas.com.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
