As many of you probably already know, the railway bridge over the Mississippi has been deemed unsafe by the Hennepin county engineers for use of extension of the Greenway east to St Paul. There is consideration of a separate span for bicycle and pedestrian traffic parallel to this bridge but it is probably not going to happen without lots of support on both sides of the river. On my side of the bridge (St Paul) there is plenty of space along the old Milwaukee rail grade for this extension. This would follow Ayd Mill Road and eventually connect with the Bruce Vento and Gateway trails in downtown St Paul.
I would hate to see loss of momentum for this project in St Paul, even though we may have to wait for a new river crossing. Building this trail in St Paul now would provide safe acess to the Midway area which is pretty bicycle and pedestrian unfriendly at this time.
Richard S.

I have had my fingers crossed for a long time about the Greenway getting over the River.

The way I understand it, the problem lies with the Board who is in charge of the Mississippi River Valley. Apparently, they have a hardfast rule that there can be no more new bridges corssing the River within the metro area. Therefore the only solution is to attach the trail to an existing bridge, but as you pointed out, the most logical choice has been considered unsafe.

I am still hoping, though!!

The bridge seems to be out and I don't think it's necessary anyway if some small improvements were made to Marshall Ave and the existing Lake St./Marshall bridge. There are existing threads about this.

I would like to find out more about bike advocacy groups in St. Paul and getting a St. Paul greenway off the ground. We're moving from Lyn-Lake to near the Midway and would love to help improve bike conditions in our soon-to-be new neighborhood.

If an express bikeway is one of the goals here, than crossing at Lake Street is not acceptable as that takes away the express aspect.

To head south from 27th to Lake, cross the bridge, then head north again to Prospect Park before continuing along the freight rail alignment is hardly an express/direct route.

The existing bridge was deemed unsafe "as is". It could be made to be safe with a bunch of work and a bunch of investment. Investment, approaching the amount it would have taken to build the new bridge is my understanding.

I know that I would use the bridge over the river and the St. Paul extension frequently to travel between Midtown Minneapolis and Midway St. Paul. Being diverted to Lake Street or Franklin Avenue does nothing to make this a better trip.

As of right now, the Hennepin county and the City of Minneapolis have put plans for a separate bridge on hold. There are a number of reasons for this: first, the strong resistance from The Friends of the Mississippi (which is not in charge of anything, but is a community advocacy group with a reasonably large membership), who oppose the idea of adding any more bridges to the Mississippi River Gourge; the expense of the bridge (about $12,000,000), which would actually be about the same per user to build as the I-94 bridge about half a mile north of the location if we maintain the current number of users for the Greenway (though of course the bridge would probably mean we would have a large increase in the number of users); and finally, because building it would involve getting separate studies made by about a dozen or more State and Federal agencies. Frankly, getting a NEW bridge built, if we can do it at all, is likely to take a couple of decades.

As has already been said, the current bridge is unsafe for use, so that option is right out the window.

A better option, in many ways, is a replacement for the railroad bridge. This has problems of it's own, of course. First of all, due to a fire last summer (caused by some kids setting off fireworks on the deck on the 4th of July), the railroad is extremely reluctant to give anyone access to their bridge. It was practically a miracle they let us buy the piece of their right of way which is being used for the Seward/Longfellow section of the Greenway (railroads are historically extremely reluctant to sell off any of their property), and since the fire they are even less interested. Certainly, they are not going to rebuild the bridge unless they are forced to do so, and even then they will probably fight against the idea of any extension of the Greenway which uses their (new) bridge.

They do still use the bridge, though they only have one customer on this side of the river (the Purina silos on Hiawatha Avenue), so it really seems like the best option at this time is to wait for Purina to decided their location is not economically logical anymore, and move the silos, thus leaving the railroad with no more customers on this side of the river. Once that happens, the county is likely to have better luck negotiating with the railroad to buy the bridge, which they could then replace (for about the same amount of money as building a new bridge, though with far fewer regulatory nightmares). Unfortunately, we have no idea when Purina might decide to move their silos, so we have no idea when all of this could happen.

Finally, there is the extension of the Greenway into Saint Paul. Last I heard, Saint Paul has allocated funds for the building of the extension, but they can't do it as the railroad is unwilling to sell them the land (see my comment about the idiot kids with the fireworks above). This is another one where it will probably happen eventually, but at the moment we don't know exactly when. The Purina silos are a big determining factor here again, at least in terms of dealing with the railroad, but again, we don't know when they might decided to move, or even IF they will decided to move.


Gabriel

As I understand it, the most recent view is that the bridge is unsalvageable, and the only good option would be to replace it. There are some basic design issues which really do mean we do not want to use that bridge. Certainly, the county has expressed a very real lack of interest in owning it.


Gabriel

Gabriel, yes, a bridge replacement would be better than a rehabilitation that would cost about the same money.

Anyone got enough dough in their couch cushions to buy out Purina?