Bobcat Trail

San Marcos is known for its beautiful hill country scenery and rivers. Facilities Associated Vice President Juan Guerra said that the upcoming Bobcat Trail installment will be between North LBJ Drive and Edward Gary Street, and is intended to create a pedestrian mall to make it a lot easier to travel across that part of campus.

“Also they won’t be competing with less trucks, cars, and buses; weather it will directly affect enrollment I am not sure, but surely it will affect and improve the quality of life for the students who are already here. Then hopefully, it will attract students in the future,” said Guerra.

Guerra said that different types of plants will be involved with Bobcat Trail construction, “We use a plant palette that is in the master plan, so we use a lot of native plants. Also, we try to use drought tolerant and low water intensive plants and we are going to match the upper part of the trial that’s already been put in place and then add some trees. Otherwise, it will be a pretty hot space walking through there.”

Guerra talked about how heat is a factor on campus and how bobcat trail could resolve the some of the issue.

“The heat-island effect is when you bring in a lot of concrete and asphalt or massive of amounts of materials that absorb a lot of the heat and then they just radiate it throughout the day. So we try to screen a lot of that concrete work on the trail. We have a lot of handicap accessible ramps on the Trail, so we try to minimize the heat effect on the trail it by putting in green spaces and trees to soften up the Trail and make it a lot cooler to walk through, especially if we provide the shade and benches for people to enjoy that area.”
– Facilities Associated Vice President Juan Guerra

Bobcat Trail is Scheduled to have its grand opening on campus December 2015.

Bethany Perales, KTSW News