Chris Riley, who served as a city councilman from 2009 to 2015, died Sunday after a battle with cancer.

Riley is originally from Austin and was known as a staunch advocate for cycling infrastructure and densification at a time when the political balance in City Hall was shifting toward other priorities.

“Chris loved Austin so much. He wanted to dedicate his entire life to making it the city he wanted it to be,” said Riley’s wife, Denise Brady.

Riley battled head and neck cancer in 2021. He underwent chemotherapy and radiation and believed the cancer was gone. But scans after a cycling accident in June 2023 that broke his ribs and punctured his lungs showed lesions on his liver. He had been receiving treatment since August 2023. He stopped treatment six weeks ago.

“He’s just been living his best life for the last couple months, trying to cram every activity and every item on his bucket list,” Brady said. “He went out with a bang.”

A few weeks ago, Riley – known for cycling to the town hall when he was in the council – went on a bike ride with his college buddies. Riley couldn’t ride a bike, but his friends took him in a pedicab and toured Austin, visited the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue, ate barbecue, and ended the day with a jump in the Barton Springs Pool.

“He wasn’t ready to go. He didn’t want to die,” Brady said. “But he was at peace with the life he was living.”

Thanks to Denise Brady. Chris Riley floats in Barton Springs Pool after a recent bike ride with friends from college.

Riley was born in Austin in 1964, the third of four children. He studied economics at Harvard University and law at UT Austin. He clerked for the Texas Supreme Court and later worked as an attorney in private practice.

Riley was first elected to the Austin City Council in 2009 and was re-elected in 2012. Michael Riley said his older brother was much more drawn to local issues than to state or federal politics.

“This was Austin. This was home,” Michael said. “This is where he wanted to make a difference.”

Riley pushed for policies that were controversial for their time under the at-large City Council, in which all members were elected citywide. Since then, the city has been divided into 10 council districts, each of which elects its own representative, shifting the political balance toward the type of urbanism Riley advocated.

“Chris had a vision for what he thought every community could look like and should look like,” said Mike Martinez, a former city councilman who sat next to Riley on the dais. Martinez was scheduled to have coffee with Riley on Tuesday.

“He had strong opinions about Austin and the policies he supported: density, walkable cities, bikeable cities,” Martinez said.

Riley pioneered the idea of ​​street patios in downtown Austin. He was a general proponent of denser housing options, especially near bus routes. In 2013, his fight to repeal rules requiring developers to build a minimum number of parking spaces was “long, arduous and controversial,” said his former policy aide Leah Bojo.

Last year, Austin became one of the largest cities in the country to eliminate citywide parking requirements.

“It seems hard to imagine that we would be where we are today without some of those early adopters taking those first steps,” Bojo said. “People said he was ahead of his time, but I really think he had to take those steps early so that the trajectory and momentum could continue and we could get the real changes that we’re getting now.”

In recognition of Riley’s efforts to push for better cycling infrastructure, the Austin City Council renamed a small section of the Shoal Creek Trail after him in May. Chris Riley Bend, between Fifth Street and West Avenue, was a missing gap in the trail that he sought to fix. Immediately after the vote, Riley told KUT he was honored.

“For anyone who’s not really familiar with that stretch, it might seem odd that this one little bend in the creek has its own name,” Riley said. “But for those of us who remember its absence and realize what it’s like to have it, it means a lot.”

No matter what policy issue Riley addressed, Martinez said, he was an ardent listener. He didn’t write off those who disagreed with him.

“What I learned from Chris Riley … is that it doesn’t cost you anything to be nice,” the former councilman and mayoral candidate said. “But it makes such a difference to the people you’re nice to. And he was always, always nice.”

Riley is survived by his wife Denise Brady, two parents, two brothers and one sister.

This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor‘s reporting partnership with KUT.

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