Two City of Austin road projects meet at the intersection of Mesa Drive and Spicewood Springs Road in Northwest Hills this fall. On Mesa, between Spicewood Springs and Far West Boulevard, the City is cutting the street to one travel lane in each direction and adding buffered bike lanes. Roadwork, including at the intersection itself, is expected through September and October. On Spicewood Springs, between Loop 360 and Mesa, the City is widening a two-lane road to four lanes, with shared-use paths along both sides.
So one street is losing pavement for cars and the other is gaining it. Both, though, end up with space set aside for walking and biking that they didn't have before. The bigger difference is time. Mesa's redesign went from its first community survey to new paint in roughly a year. Spicewood's will have taken more than a decade from bond election to finish. The rest of this post explains why.
Why Mesa moved so fast
Mesa Drive didn't make the change because a long-range plan said it should. It made the change because the asphalt was due. The City resurfaced the segment in July and August 2026. Resurfacing wipes out the old pavement markings, and the new ones have to meet current City standards. This stretch was last resurfaced about 20 years ago, so the standards had changed in the meantime.
That rule forced two changes on its own. The old 16-foot travel lanes had to come down to 11 or 12 feet to meet the City's Transportation Criteria Manual. The same manual calls for separate space for parking and biking, so on-street parking had to move to one side of the street, away from the bike lane.
The City added a second set of changes on top of those, based on what it saw in its data and heard from residents. The final design for the Spicewood Springs-to-Far West segment includes:
- One travel lane in each direction
- Bike lanes with painted buffers on both sides
- Four new pedestrian crossing islands
- Asphalt speed cushions in place of the old rubber ones
- Safety changes at the Spicewood Springs and Mesa intersection
- On-street parking only on the east side, separated from the bike lane
The City's own numbers explain why it went past the minimum. In its 2025 speed-management review, this stretch ranked 12th out of 878 streets citywide, a ranking based on measured speeds, traffic volumes and crash history. Counts taken in 2026 found about half of drivers going over the speed limit. The City's Vision Zero data shows more than 125 crashes on the segment from 2016 through 2025. The City also counts about 250 to 475 pedestrians and 150 to 250 cyclists on this section of Mesa every day. That's a lot of foot and bike traffic for a street that until this summer had 16-foot car lanes and no separate bike space.
What residents changed in the plan
The community feedback shows up clearly in what was cut from the design. The City ran two rounds of engagement in spring and summer 2026. In the first round, 64% of respondents had at least one concern about the street, and nearly 40% named speeding as their top concern. In the second round, the City showed a draft design, and only 31% supported it while 65% didn't.
Two changes followed. Twice as many survey participants supported the new pedestrian crossings as opposed them, but about 70 comments said there were too many, so the City cut the number from eight to four. Flexible posts and other vertical bike-lane protection were also scaled back. They'll go in only at speed cushions and pedestrian crossings. The Mesa that comes out of this fall's work is a pared-down version of the City's first proposal, shaped by the people who use it every day. The City's Phase 1 and Phase 2 feedback summaries are public for anyone who wants the details.
Why Spicewood Springs is taking years
Spicewood Springs Road is on a much slower timeline. The $31 million project is funded through the 2016 Mobility Bond's Regional Mobility Program. A preliminary engineering report in December 2018 selected "Alternative C." That plan calls for two lanes in each direction, a raised median with left-turn bays, a shared-use path on both sides and new stormwater facilities. Design reached 100% in April 2023, and construction started in December 2023.
At the 2023 groundbreaking, Community Impact reported that the project was expected to finish by December 2026. That date no longer holds. In an August 11, 2026 update, the City said weather delays in spring and early summer 2026 had pushed substantial completion to summer 2027. The update also said work on the shared-use paths on both sides of the road would start in September, and that crews would keep working on rain gardens and lane paving through fall 2026.
Here's how the two projects compare, based on the City's project pages:
Mesa Drive, Spicewood Springs to Far West | Spicewood Springs Road, Loop 360 to Mesa | |
|---|---|---|
What triggered it | Summer 2026 resurfacing and current City standards | 2016 Mobility Bond |
Car lanes | One each way, at 11 to 12 feet | Two each way, with a raised median |
Space for walking and biking | Buffered bike lanes and four crossing islands | Shared-use paths on both sides |
Construction | Roadwork through September and October 2026 | Started December 2023 |
Expected finish | No date posted beyond the fall work window | Summer 2027 |
Spicewood's work hours are posted. Crews work weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekends from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the City asks drivers to follow the work-zone speed limit and allow extra time. Mesa's page says only that the schedule may change and that temporary traffic impacts should be expected.
Other neighborhood projects on the slower timeline
Most of the other projects near this corner are on the slower, Spicewood-style timeline, and several are tied to the same streets.
The Old Quarry Branch Library at 7051 Village Center Drive sits near the Far West end of Mesa. Austin Public Library had scheduled it to reopen on June 22, 2026, with a grand reopening celebration on June 27. Both were postponed after crews found during final utility coordination and building commissioning that more electrical infrastructure work and approvals were needed. The library said it was aiming to reopen "later this summer." As of this writing in October, the branch page still says the reopening is postponed and gives no new date. When it does open, it will have a new outdoor reading patio, new learning areas for children and teens, a fully redesigned interior and upgraded HVAC and building systems. On the same street, the Far West H-E-B at 7025 Village Center Drive lists daily hours of 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Bull Creek Bluff Neighborhood Park at 6309 Spicewood Springs Road is on the corridor being widened. Planned improvements include a small accessible parking area, a pavilion, a rain garden, bike racks and a new entrance lined up with Yaupon Drive. The City's schedule shows permitting in summer 2026, construction in summer 2027 and opening in winter 2027.
The Shoal Creek Trail is getting a 12-foot underpass beneath Northland Drive, which the City's project page labels RM 2222. It will connect to the Shoal Creek Boulevard bikeways and an existing nature trail in parkland, and the City expects it to be done in summer 2027.
Put together, here's the timeline for the area as the City and library currently list it:
- Through October 2026: Mesa Drive roadwork, including at the Spicewood Springs intersection
- Fall 2026: Spicewood Springs shared-use paths, rain gardens and lane paving
- No date posted: Old Quarry Branch reopening
- Summer 2027: Spicewood Springs substantial completion and the Shoal Creek underpass
- Winter 2027: Bull Creek Bluff Neighborhood Park opening
Every date on this list except Mesa's comes from a project that started years before its pavement work did, and two of those dates have already slipped once. Mesa is the only item likely to be finished before the end of 2026. Its speed came from a repaving cycle that had to happen anyway.
Two neighborhood events fall during this window. Northwest Hills United Methodist Church holds its Fall Fest on Sunday, October 18, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with food, music, games and Ben the Longhorn. The church is also hosting a community document and hard-drive shred event on Saturday, October 24, from 10 a.m. to noon.
If you own a home on Mesa Drive or along the Spicewood Springs corridor and are wondering how these changes might show up in a future sale, from the on-street parking on Mesa to a shared-use path along the front of a lot on Spicewood, Annette Patterson at Bramlett Partners is happy to walk through it with you, calmly and with no pressure. Let's Connect.
