Minneapolis to Spend $900k on Bicycling

The City of Minneapolis has received a $900,000 grant to improve cycling facilities in the city. They don’t plan to blow it all in one place, however. Highlights include:

• A new (or improved?) bridge to the new Gophers Stadium. (The question mark is because I thought Bridge #9 was behind the hospital, which is a fair hike from the new stadium location.)
• Finally finishing the Hiawatha Connection to downtown.
• Finishing the Cedar Lake Trail to the River.
• Adding a posse of bike racks.
• A new bike depot near the Greenway.

In somewhat more dubious excitement, they plan to re-stripe many existing bike lanes. Several of Minneapolis’ designated routes need more than paint to make them meet a standard of ‘not ridiculous relative to common rules of traffic.’ I’m thinking the downtown Hennepin Avenue lane, which goes through the CENTER of the road and thus is head-on to buses in both directions, and the Portland/Park lanes, which have bicycles - the slowest moving vehicles on the road - in the left-hand part of the one-way street, cutting across 3 lanes to make right turns. But, hey, the lanes will have fresh paint!