Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Chalo wrote:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/comal-5th

If you move the mouse over the "Earth" icon in the upper right, pick
"more", select "bicycling", and unselect "45 degrees", it shows the
bike lanes in bright green, along with some others (E. 5th St). *

Interesting; I hadn't been aware of either of those enhancements to
Google Maps. I wonder why it decided to turn on "45 degrees"? Funny
that the stretch of E. 5th between Comal and Chicon gets designated as
a bike lane, when there's no bike lane there. It's a very narrow
roadway at that point, and quite rippled from shifting soil under the
roadbed. There are no lane markings there at all.

Green
and black I presume are bicycle friendly roadways. * It's clearer if
you click on "map" instead of "Earth". *It's definitely not a
continuous bike path, but no worse than some others I've seen.

The whole area is pretty bike-friendly-- thanks to narrow streets, low
speeds, lots of mixed use with housing as part of the mix, and
relatively considerate drivers in this part of town.

Hmmm... fairly close to the Texas State Cemetary. *Very convenient.

It's a well-kept cemetery and a nice way to reduce the maximum slope
going north when the gates are open. (I sometimes ride heavy Austin
Bike Zoo contraptions up that grade.) It had fallen into disrepair a
few years ago because there was no funding to maintain it. Then a
state legislator had the idea to designate the path through there as a
state highway, so they can use highway funds to keep it up. The
cemetery often has a living state trooper lurking in there now, too.

It's funny to me that there can be the political will to make the
State Cemetery officially a highway (when it isn't used for
transportation), but bicycle facilities that serve a lot of folks'
transportation needs are not eligible for that money.

Chalo