Active Transporation

Active transportation infrastructure is an important component to a balanced transportation system that supports mobility. Active transportation is a general term that covers non-motorized modes of travel such as walking, biking, and wheeling. Pedestrian and bicycle-supportive infrastructure helps provide facilities that enable travelers to choose non-motorized travel throughout the Temple MMP study area and provides key accessibility connections to people with mobility challenges. Accessibility and connectivity for people who walk and bike or use other active transportation modes is a primary goal of the previous Temple Comprehensive Plan 2020 and therefore is expected to play a major role in the Temple MMP as well.

To gain a better understanding of the current conditions for walking, biking, or using a mobility device in the study area, this memo aims to answer three questions:

1. How does it feel to walk or bike in Temple right now? 2. Where are people in Temple likely to walk or bike? 3. Where are barriers to walking and biking in Temple?

Answers to these questions are gathered through a range of analysis and data which are described in more detail in the sections below.

Existing Facilities

Sidewalks

The City of Temple’s sidewalk network is predominantly located in the central core of Temple between I-35 to the west and SH 363 to the east. The street network in this area is gridded with relatively short block lengths between each street. Short block lengths and a well-connected street network can promote increased walking trips if paired with a sidewalk network in good condition and with proper connectivity.

Within the City of Temple, there are 173 miles of existing sidewalk. Roadways throughout the City of Temple that should typically have sidewalks on both sides were measured to arrive at 1,122 miles of total potential sidewalk (including the existing infrastructure) in the City of Temple (Table 23). This means that over 84% of roadways that should typically have sidewalk currently lack this transportation resource. To get a better sense of the overall condition of existing sidewalks within the City of Temple municipal boundary, sidewalk data from the City’s GIS database and Google Street view imagery were analyzed to determine the proportion of sidewalk in each of the six sidewalk condition rankings. Results are displayed in Figure 68 below. 40% of existing sidewalk is in good condition or better, much of which is located outside of the core of Temple in neighborhoods to the west and south. These occurrences may have more recent developments with newer sidewalk; however, based on what is depicted in the most recent Google Street view imagery, 6% of sidewalk is in Fair condition while another 40% is in Poor or Very Poor condition. Fair, Poor, and Very Poor sidewalks are concentrated in the gridded central portion of Temple. 14% of existing sidewalk did not have a reported condition ranking.