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A new update has been released regarding the Gateway Trail mentioned in an earlier post. The trail will not be closed during the entire I-35E reconstruction. As a matter of fact, it will be open by this Friday if everything goes as planned. The trail segment will be closed on and off between now and late 2015.
The Gateway Trail will close between the Cayuga end of the trail and L’orient St on July 23, 2013. The trail will remain closed until late 2015 for tree removal and general area construction. The most convenient access to the western edge of the trail is at the community garden and parking lot where the Gateway Trail crosses Arlington.
Check out the new Bikeverywhere jersey. It is being offered as a perk for $100 backers on the Bikeverywhere fund raising campaign. if you want this jersey, act quickly. the campaign ends in 9 days. to learn more or claim your jersey, go to http://igg.me/p/320424/x/2203427
The Parks and Trails Council of Minnesota has always been at the forefront of every effort to secure new green spaces for Minnesota. For over 60 years they’ve collected money to move quickly on land purchases that have great value to the state. Then, when the slow machinery of State or local government finally frees up funds, the Council sells the land and uses money from the sale to invest again. Trails have always had a special place on the Council’s agenda. This year their agenda includes funding for 13 trail projects that meet the Council’s four main criteria:
The Mill Towns State Trail is a good example of their priorities: It will connect the popular Cannon Valley and Sakatah Singing Hills trails (located for high use and enhances connectivity). It will include a bridge over the Cannon River (“destination” experience) and funding is needed right now to secure a 6.5 mile right of way (development depends on quick action). 12 other trails meet the same criteria and the Parks and Trails Council is ready to move on all of them.
Their impact on some of the most important quality of life amenities in the state expands to a legislative agenda that includes restoring funding to operate State Parks and Trails and making the Legacy Funds from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment truly transformative. Dorian Grilley, former Executive Director of the Council, reviewed “Bicycle Vacation Guide” when it first came out and told me. “Our goal is to make this book outdated as quickly as possible.” They did a great job on that front and I couldn’t have been happier about it.
Check out the Council’s website. It’s not an exciting read, but even a quick look will demonstrate just how important this venerable institution has been to those of us who need the restorative power of nature in our lives.
This just in. Mt Borah, a custom athletic clothing manufacturer, has agreed to make a custom Bikeverywhere cycling jersey for sponsors of the Bikeverywhere campaign on Indiegogo. This offer is so new that we don’t have the artwork figured out yet. check out the campaign and offer here.
The Indiegogo fund raising campaign has been launched! The goal of the campaign is to raise money to make the new Bikeverywhere website the best place on the web for planning your next bike ride.
We’ll launch the new site in Mid March. It’s already packed full of bike route and trail information plus bike amenities like picnic areas, parks, bathrooms and photos, but it can be better. If this campaign is successful, we will immediately begin planning and developing improvements to the site. You will see those improvements rolling out soon after launch.
Please help us get to out goal of $8000. You can do that by backing the project at one of a number of different levels, from a basic $12 membership to a $10,00 luxury houseboat and bike tour of the Upper Mississippi River.
If money isn’t an option, please spread the word by liking and sharing this post, sending out twitter feeds and emailing friends. Everything you do will help us make the new Bikeverywhere website the best go-to location for bike route information in the Upper Midwest.
Thanks for your support.
We’re less than six weeks from launching the new Bikeverywhere website, and already thinking about enhancements with Phase 2. Those upgrades, however, take money, so next week I’ll be launching an Indiegogo Campaign, a crowd funding project to get us started working on site upgrades almost as soon as the new bikeverywhere.com is launched.
Crowd funding is a fascinating way to raise money. In my case, I will make the pitch, explaining that Bikeverywhere is a better way to find bike routes online. The main pitch will be with a video and the Campaign description. I also offer “Perks” for backing the project. The basic perk will be an extended membership on the site for $12 and a membership plus Bikeverywhere t-shirt for $25. From there it goes up to the ridiculous level of a $10,000 backer. In the unlikely event that one of those would surface, they will get a three day luxury bike and houseboat tour on the Mississippi River for the backer and up to 7 companions. Probably not worth the cost, but if a backer believes in the project to that level, he or she should get something besides the satisfaction of seeing a great website.
If I reach my goal of $8000 in backing, I get the funds. (If not, no one is out any money). At that point we’ll look at the list of potential enhancements, check it against requests from members and compare to the amount of money available for upgrades. Then we begin designing and coding the enhancements.
If I don’t get the money, the same process will happen, but it will take much longer to improve the site.
Thanks to the generosity of the League of Illinois Bicyclists the new interactive Bikeverywhere website now has bike routes to Metra Stations in over a dozen cities, plus more complete bike routes in Aurora and Rockford. This active group has also mapped out bike routes for Champaign-Urbana, Decatur, the Quad Cities and Springfield. We will be adding those routes when we expand the area covered by Bikeverywhere. The new Bikeverywhere website with Chicago area bike routes, will be live in Mid-March.
A 10 year study of bicycle/motorist crashes in Minneapolis found that bicyclists and motorists were almost equally to blame for bike car crashes. The study looked at 270 crashes and found that motorists caused accidents when they didn’t see bicyclists and bicyclists caused accidents when they failed to stop at stop signs or rode the wrong way in traffic. Most accidents, 81 percent, occurred within 50 feet of an intersection, especially intersections with high traffic. The multi-angled junction of Cedar, Franklin and Minnehaha avenues led the list with 20 crashes over 10 years. The report urged the city to continue some of the changes they have recently adapted, including extending bike markings through congested intersections and using dashed lines to indicate where motorists can cross a bike path to make a turn. It also recommended that motorists and bicyclists receive even handed enforcement.
Watch for an exciting new addition to Bikeverywhere this spring. We’ll be launching our new interactive digital map of the Upper Midwest. The map will include all of the bike routes and trails you can find on our Twin Cities, Madison and Milwaukee Bike Maps, plus much more. Here’s a sampling of the bike route information we’ve already compiled for the site:
Minnesota: State bike trails from the Minnesota DNR, bike routes from Bicycle Vacation Guide, bike trails and road routes around Winona, Northfield, Faribault, Fargo/Moorhead, Alexandria, and Brainerd/Baxter. Nice Ride bike share stations and a couple of gravel road routes in the Grand Marais area
Wisconsin: The Wisconsin DOT file of bike routes in all 72 counties, bike routes and trails in Green Bay/Brown County. LaCrosse, Jefferson County, through routes for long distance tourists. Still to be added: Wausau and Marathon County Bike routes.
Illinois: Northern Illinois Bike trails, Chicago bike routes, routes and trails in Rockford, Aurora, Joliet, Naperville, Will County and Des Plaines County
Still to come: Public bathrooms, drinking fountains, parking, landmarks, public art, photos, bicycle friendly businesses
We’ve got tools for creating, printing, sharing and storing your own custom routes and the option to add your favorite bike related information to the site.
Don’t worry. We aren’t getting rid of the printed maps. Stay tuned.