We had our “ribbon cutting” for the 7 or 8 mile stretch of bike trail between Urbana and St. Joseph Thursday. IT’s been officially open for a week or two. Official type people said something about having counted 500 people in a day using it. We rode out to St. JOe in the evening… paused in town and came back.
The St. Joe end of the trail is pretty awesome — it lands smack on Main Street and “The Wheelhouse” even comes before that.
The Urbana end is … at the extreme eastern end of Main STreet at a dangerous intersection.
However, it’s so bad that that might be a good thing. People seemed much more willing to seriously consider bike infrastructure where it hadn’t been considered before… because they could see in front of their faces the benefits.
Our new mayor promised to get a pancake house at a corner nearby and that it wouldn’t take the 20 years it took to get the trail going 😉
My Saturday ride wound around Homer Lake and then down to St. Joe… and we grabbed the trail, realizing that this end isn’t perfect — the intersection with Main STreet would run us right into parked cars.
We rode back and then ducked South and around the urban mess that would be the end of the trail to our starting point at Meadowbrook Park, with good parking and nearby amenities, restaurants, banks, the “Red Bicycle Ice Cream SHoppe…” a slight side trip gets you to Riggs BRewery…
So, downtown Urbana Business District… sorry/not-sorry! I’m thinking getting the word out and maybe even some creative “wayfinding” for people is in order…
Urbana-Champaign Cycling Ventures 