MnDOT building consensus on Mississippi River trail management
The Minnesota Department of Transportation is hoping to build consensus on how to govern the Mississippi River Trail bikeway through a set of meetings starting this week across the state.
The bikeway starts in Itasca State Park and travels nearly 500 miles in Minnesota along the river. The route is made up of road shoulders and low-traffic roads, as well as state and regional trails to the Iowa border. Nearly 70 cities, counties and other governing agencies have jurisdiction over parts of the trail.
MnDOT landscape architect Liz Walton said that means all those agencies must come together to agree on something as simple as signs along the route.
"We'll talk about the vision we have, we'll talk about some of the goals, but we're also going to introduce at least some examples of what we're calling collaborative management from other organizations that in some cases may manage similar -- a bicycle route -- or something completely different but that has multiple jurisdictions," she said.
The first meeting is Monday in Roseville, followed by Bemidji on Tuesday and St. Cloud on Wednesday. For more information, visit the MnDOT website .
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