Building Bridges

New vision for portion of Lady Bird Lake unveiled by Austin's Trail Foundation

Butler Trail at Congress Avenue Bridge rendering 2015 Lady Bird Lake

The Trail Foundation has unveiled a project to revamp a section of Lady Bird Lake's hike-and-bike trail.

Rendering courtesy of The Trail Foundation

Just one year after completing the Lady Bird Lake Boardwalk, The Trail Foundation has its eyes on another slice of the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail that's in need of some love. The nonprofit has unveiled a $2.5 million project to revamp a rundown section of the trail at the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge.

The plan is to replace the old wooden bridge on the northern side of the lake that currently connects the east and west sides of Butler Trail under the Congress Avenue Bridge. The new, 14-foot-wide bridge will be sleek in design and provide much-needed safety improvements to the area. The update also includes a viewing platform that will serve as a convenient spot for seeing the bat colony.

Funding for the project is expected to come from private donations. The Trail Foundation announced that Robert F. Smith of Vista Equity Partners has offered a one-to-one match of up to $1.25 million, bringing the total budget to $2.5 million.

"An investment in the trail is an investment in Austin's future — one that will keep our community's most cherished outdoor asset safe, accessible, and enjoyable for many years to come," said Smith in a statement.

Consulting firm Freese and Nichols is working through the final design and permitting phase. The Trail Bridge at Congress Avenue is slated for completion in 2017.

nature downtown transportation fitness

millennial magnet cities

Austin has fallen out of favor with millennials for 2025, report shows

Downtown Austin, state capital, Congress Avenue

Photo by Justin Wallace on Unsplash

Don't worry, you'll still find plenty of millennials on scooters downtown.

Millennial Austinites may be growing tired of the city's consistently changing landscape: Austin has once again fallen out from the coveted No. 1 spot in SmartAsset's annual report of "Cities Attracting the Most Millennials" in 2025.

In fact, Austin barely scraped into the top 10 and ranked No. 9 this year, just like it did in SmartAsset's 2023 report.

The 2025 study dug into data from the U.S. Census Bureau 1-Year American Community Survey to determine the number of millennials who moved to 271 U.S. cities in 2023 (where the most recent data is available). Rankings were determined by the percentage of the total population of millennials who moved into each city in 2023.

A total of 103,738 millennial transplants landed in the capital of Texas in 2023, according to the study's findings, bringing the city's total millennial-age population to 395,776. That means about 41 percent of the city's entire population is made up of people aged between 25 and 44.

Breaking that down further, the report found that the number of millennials who moved to Austin from elsewhere in Travis County was more than double those who moved from other Texas counties: 55,591 and 21,403, respectively. In addition, 19,890 millennials moved in from a different state, and 6,854 moved in from abroad.

SmartAsset also unveiled that the average household income of a millennial Austinite is $91,501 annually, and their total median housing costs add up to $1,828 per month.

While the report doesn't give a reason why millennials favored other cities over Austin, the city's housing prices, job market, and family planning prospects can all have an influence.

"Millennials are often in their prime earning years, and many have young families, which may significantly impact the communities they join and leave," the study said.

In a separate 2024 report by commercial real estate platform CommercialCafe, Austin was crowned the No. 1 city for millennials.

Alexandria, Virginia, is the No. 1 millennial magnet for 2025 with the highest proportional influx of millennial transplants in 2023, at 12.67 percent. For context, Austin's share of new millennials was only 10.69 percent.

Austin was the highest ranked Texas city in the report, with Houston ranking second statewide but 51st overall. Houston had a far higher influx of millennial newcomers in 2023, at nearly 177,000 transplants, but the share of new millennials that moved in as a percentage of the total population was lower than Austin's, at just 7.7 percent.

The top 10 magnet cities for millennials in 2025 are:

No. 1 – Alexandria, Virginia
No. 2 – Cambridge, Massachusetts
No. 3 – Denver, Colorado
No. 4 – Sandy Springs, Georgia
No. 5 – Seattle, Washington
No. 6 – Sunnyvale, California
No. 7 – Santa Clara, California
No. 8 – Arlington, Virginia
No. 9 – Austin, Texas
No. 10 – Orlando, Florida

austin millennials reports smartasset