From Swamplot:
Heritage Corridor West bike trail
It looks like large portions of the 2.8-mile-long Heritage West Bikeway connecting Stude Park to UH-Downtown are close to completion, but the path along portions of the former UP railway won’t open until summer, according to the city. One important still-missing link: a pedestrian bridge over Little White Oak Bayou. Past the University, the 10-ft. wide trail will connect to the Heritage East Bikeway, which continues along White Oak Bayou to Lockwood.
The new western portion will hook up with the MKT hike-and-bike trail both at Stude Park and at Spring St., providing an alternate along-the-bayou path for bicyclists headed downtown from the Heights.
Go visit that Swamplot post for some pictures from the construction. Here’s a map of the MKT Trail for comparison. Both of them will get you from the Heights to downtown, specifically to UH Downtown, with the main difference being that Heritage West is entirely along the bayou and thus off the streets, while MKT goes alongside Spring Street and requires crossing intersections such as at Sawyer and Houston Avenue. MKT is the way to go if you have a destination before UH-D, Heritage is if you want the scenic route. There’s still some construction east of where the two meet up – see the note on the Houston Bikeways Facebook page – so watch out and stay off the trail where there’s still active construction. I know a lot of people who are excited about this, and I’m looking forward to taking Olivia on a ride out that way when it’s done. And when they finally connect MKT to West White Oak, you’ll be able to ride a hell of a long way without having to share space with an automobile. Michael Skelly has more.
UPDATE: Bill Shirley sent me the following picture of the bike trail construction this afternoon:
Making the trail
Way cool.