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!
The University trail will go from bridge #9 to the start of the University Transitway (to the St. Paul campus) following the present railway. It will go past the new stadium but that’s not the intended destination.
OK, that makes sense. The article was saying ‘bridge,’ which baffled me more than a little – there IS a bridge. It’s a nice bridge! It’s not near the stadium, though.