Posted: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 02:35 PM - 12,628 Readers

By: Ben Wear

A $920,000 project to add bike lanes to Lake Austin Boulevard as it passes Lions Municipal Golf Course should be complete within a week, the project's manager said Monday.

Chad Crager, with the City of Austin's Public Works Department, said that the new, 7-foot-wide concrete bike lane on the north side of the road is already complete and open to the public, although workers have not yet put striping on it. The 5-foot-wide bike lane on the south side of the road, also concrete, should be done by week's end, Crager said.

Then on Sunday night, weather permitting, a new coat of asphalt will be applied to the 3,000-foot-long, four-lane stretch of Lake Austin Boulevard between Exposition Boulevard and Red Bud Trail. Striping and cleanup work will follow over the next couple of weeks.

The original price tag for the project was about $905,000 when the Austin City Council approved it in February. However, Crager said a water line under the south bike lane was found to be shallower than expected, and accommodating that situation drove the final construction cost to about $920,000. In addition, Crager said design work cost another 10 percent or so of the construction cost.

The work also included an improved drainage channel between the golf course and the north bike lane, Crager said.

Two vehicle lanes will be slightly narrowed to provide room for the bike lanes within the existing city-owned right of way. Instead of having 11-foot-wide outside lanes and 12-foot-wide inside lanes, all four lanes in this section of Lake Austin will be 11 feet wide.

*  Story Contributed by: Ben Wear