The Spring Creek Greenway:
Connecting Communities story by Crystal Simmons
O
n a sunny day in May, families stroll among towering pines along the Spring Creek Greenway. A lone bicyclist hurtles down an asphalt path, sending a family of deer back into the brush. A few yards away, an osprey hunts for fish in the creek, unaware of a troop of birdwatchers snapping photos. The sounds of birds, frogs, and rustling leaves compete with the distant patter of greenway travelers. With twelve times more land than New York's Central Park, the Spring Creek Greenway is a 10,000-acre forest in one of the region's most populated areas, connecting dozens of neighborhoods and eight parks. Visitors can travel as many as 17.5 miles of paved paths and hundreds of miles of natural surface trails through preserved pinewood forests, wetlands, and prairies from Humble to just west of I-45. "You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars traveling to see bald eagles, ospreys, beavers, and river otters," says Dennis Johnston, Harris County Precinct 4's parks director. "They are here in our backyard and can be best viewed along our creeks in a canoe or kayak."
A section of the Spring Creek Greenway Trail near Humble. PHOTO BY Crystal Simmons.
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Precinct4Update Fall/Winter 2021
