East Austin’s big riverfront park is whole again. The City of Austin has completed the historic stabilization project at Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Metropolitan Park, a $28.5 million effort — the largest erosion control project in Austin’s history — that gives this beloved green space a brand-new pedestrian bridge and a healed creek.
The story began with the 2015 floods, which washed away the old bridge over Country Club Creek and carved deep erosion into the park, threatening trails, roads and the popular Krieg Fields ballfields. Work began in August 2022, and the new bridge — built to withstand future flood events — now reconnects Krieg Fields with the parkland east of the creek, so walkers, runners and cyclists can roam the whole park again.
The engineering doubles as nature. The bridge spans one of three new grade-control structures that step stormwater gently down to the Colorado River, while a naturalized channel bottom, rocks and native grasses calm the banks. Crews stabilized 35 acres of parkland, planted more than 40 new trees and added $500,000 to plant still more throughout the park. The project was named 2025 Project of the Year by the Texas chapter of the American Public Works Association.
Today the park is back to what Austin does best: shady trails, disc golf under the trees, ball games at Krieg Fields and quiet views of the Colorado River — now on ground built to last.
Photo: Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
