Hello Bikeness My Old Friend: Part III, Or Getting Your Money’s Worth From Google Maps

(Overview Post Here)

In the last installment we ended up on Polyanna Avenue, where certain urbanists always live despite constantly being wrong.

The pictures in this post come from the commute home on Wednesday October 8th (and I went back and filled some images in the first section as well, taken on this same day).

Now for the next bit. Heading from north to south; you basically need to get from Walnut Creek across Braker Lane and your endpoint should be Georgian at Rundberg (Georgian, give or take, is the start of the long bike route that turns into the two lane part of Guadalupe).

Here’s what Google recommends as the route for the whole section.

Route map from Walnut Creek to Georgian/Rundberg, original Google version
Looks chill. Wonder if it works.

The northern part of this route matches Google’s recommendations. Whitewing is a nice slow uphill with plenty of shade and interesting houses to look at. Must have been a nice place at some point before the I-35 noise got to where it is now. Then, you end up having to take a sharp left, pedal a short deathly uphill (I’m a wimp for hills), to get to the final bit of Polyanna that takes you to Braker. Here’s some shots along the way…

View of conditions on Whitewing Ave
Typical view on Whitewing
Looking back north on Whitewing
Looking back north on Whitewing
View of hill up Thrush
Short sharp hill up Thrush. M1EK hate hills.

Crossing Braker is not a joyful experience. You need to get to the other side and start on Middle Fiskville Road, which is 100 feet or so west of the I-35 frontage road. You have two options here; either go to the frontage road and cross there (if you decide to cross there, do it as a pedestrian and then you have to do some sidewalk riding to get back west), or wait for a break in traffic and cut across to the median opening, then wait until the rush hour traffic completely stops and wind through the cars to the bike lane and use it for about 50 feet east. This actually worked out better than the frontage road option as it didn’t require any sidewalk riding but YMMV. Without the rush hour stoppage of the cars I think the pedestrian option is better.

Southbound Pollyana looking at Braker
Lovely view approaching Braker on Pollyana

Then you get a brief fast run down Middle Fiskville Road, parallel and close to I-35. Wave at me as you drive. This is OK except on most days you’re gonna lose most of your velocity to a headwind and have to go to granny gear to finish the uphill (again I’m a baby on hills). Right turn on Grady Dr, left turn on Brownie Dr, usually cars in the way that prevent an easy transition here.

View of Middle Fiskville Road southbound approaching Grady
Middle Fiskville near end of uphill (facing southbound, nearing Grady)
Middle Fiskville looking back (northbound) towards Braker
Middle Fiskville looking back (northbound) towards Braker

Brownie is a downhill through areas that are the ANC’s stereotypical density nightmare (car-dependent fourplexes that have gone to pot). Still better than riding up north though. Frustratingly, you lose the ability to coast on a downhill due to a dumbass 4-way stop (this happens a lot more later). No pictures here.

Then, Google fails you. The recommended route has you going through “Brownie Neighborhood Park” which doesn’t really exist. Instead there’s a road which heads to a closed and locked gate for the charter school that took over the old Showplace Lanes bowling alley. No way through here; backtrack and ask how much you paid for these directions.

annotated google map showing closed section of road
thanks, obama
View down the actually closed road that Google recommended
Don’t believe the directions here. This is a dead-end unless you are going to pick up a kid at the charter school! And the gate was closed/locked both times so I have no idea what times it’s actually open.

Instead, you have to continue and turn on Oriole, and I was prepared to run THIS route based on pre-exploring the route in my company car previously:

Second google desktop recs
Second google rec has you going down N Creek Dr and then Rundberg. But the mobile directions on the bike take you on route 370. Weird.

Oddly enough, when on the bike, you instead get recommended Route 370 in the city bike network, which requires a short stub of sidewalk + grass into Walnut Creek Elementary. (I have no idea why the desktop directions don’t let you do this; I’ve helpfully drawn the difference; but I will eventually try the Google route as honestly the Rundberg traffic heading west in the afternoon isn’t too bad to scare me away from a right turn and a quick move to the left turn lane, just haven’t tried it yet).

Annotated map of actual final route I took through Walnut Creek Elementary
Why, google desktop, won’t you let me do what I want here?

The elementary school is likely locked up most of the school day, so this is not an option unless you are going home about when I did both times so far (about 4:45 by this point). Short section where you are like “thanks for routing me in the mud and grass and hope I didn’t take a road bike, google and the City of Austin bike route map”, and then you end up on the road that turns into Georgian. Aaaah.

view down dead-end street leading to elementary school
Bike route 370 takes you through what sure looks like a dead-end…
sidewalk for route 370
Nothing says “bike route” like being forced onto a narrow sidewalk…
looking back at sharp sidewalk turn on 370
Nice sharp turn you have to navigate to get on this, errr, bike route
dirt path at Walnut Creek elementary
Hope you weren’t riding a road bike today!
Gates at Georgian entrance to Walnut Creek Elementary
Probably not a great general-purpose bike route if they lock these gates during the day…

Last sections later this week.

m1ek

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