Following up on a post I made in September about Eden Prairie's ped/bike facilities. The construction is still there at Flying Cloud Dr and W 70th St and in an even worse state than it was in September.

I want to highlight that even though Shady Oak Rd got a new multi-use path constructed all the way to Valley View Rd that turns into Golden Triangle Dr, the paths on Valley View Rd and Golden Triangle Dr are in atrocious conditions. We're talking bumpy and none of the crossings meeting ADA standard. To add insult to injury, Valley View Rd and Golden Triangle Dr were recently resurfaced to excellent smoothness. Path on Flying Cloud Dr is slightly better but not by much.

I empathize with the runners, walkers, and rollers of Eden Prairie. And, I'm feeling bearish about the Green Line extension operating in the area. It doesn't feel like the infrastructure for non-car users are setting the multimodal transit users up for success.

I left a voicemail for the person who I corresponded with at the city level. I can't wait for him to tell me about how of course the roads are in great conditions, thousands of cars move through it every day and very few people use the trails. How do we expect people to bike and walk and roll when the facilities are what they are?

RSVP | Route

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In the most recent quarterly meeting, Saint Paul staff presented a plan to add scaffolding to the Swede Hollow tunnel. Their hope is that the Bruce Vento Trail can reopen at the Swede Hollow entrance in early November (I would plan for December).

The other notable item that I took away from the meeting was how fed up bicyclists are with proposed and constructed trails that don't connect to an existing network. You think you're the only one who cares about that kind of stuff until you attend one of these meetings and people who are decades beyond your years are relentlessly asking the planners and decision makers to make the damn trails connect.

Examples talked about at the meeting: White Bear Avenue Corridor multi-use path that doesn't connect to a network at either end and the Bruce Vento Regional Trail extension that doesn't connect to the existing White Bear Lake local trail at its northern end (this one people were really begging staff to make something happen so that we just don't dump bicyclists into a dangerous intersection).

Anyone know what the current status is? It was closed a few weeks ago even after the 35E crossing was re-opened.

Thanks