This post is for any Minneapolis bicyclers who may be curious about the Luce Line Trail coming into our town some day. There has been much progress, and also much disappointment in this effort. The Minneapolis section of the Luce Line, commonly called the Bassett Creek Trail, is being built as we speak - in fact, much is already paved from the Cedar Lake Trail near the Walker out to Wirth Parkway at Hwy-55. In the City of Plymouth, the trail is also about 95% completed coming in towards Minneapolis from the west. From Plymouth one can bike west for about 40 miles - all the way into the Cosmos (the small town of Cosmos, Mn that is).
Three Rivers Park District (formerly Hennepin Parks) is the main organization working to facilitate the Luce Line trail through the western suburbs. The disappointments have been primarily in getting the Luce Line across the City of Golden Valley to connect the Plymouth section with the Minneapolis section. As I understand it the main problem in Golden Valley was the plan to hug the RR tracks through the Golden Valley Country Club Golf Course. I have been informed that there is plenty of room for the trail on the RR right-of-way, but over the years the Country Club has encroached onto the RR property with some of their golf facilities (not sure exactly what these facilities are). The Country Club thus claimed adverse possession and stated that they could not be forced to move their facilities out of the way to make room for the trail. As I understand the situation, Three Rivers Parks was prepared to legally fight the Country Club, and figured they had a good chance of winning, if they had the support of the City of Golden Valley. Golden Valley never gave their support in this effort, so Three Rivers dropped this idea. There is some speculation that the Golden Valley City Council did not give support because they may have been misinformed, for some reason or another, by their own staff into thinking that Three Rivers was not willing to fight the Country Club. After the plan to go through the County Club was dropped, there were negotiations between Three Rivers and Golden Valley to figure out a way to go around the golf course. These efforts also eventually went sour. Golden Valley was requiring Three Rivers to pay the approximate million dollar pricetag to bury a section of overhead utility lines that had to be moved for the trail. Golden Valley was also requiring Three Rivers to pay them for their engineering and planning costs related to the trail. Three Rivers is willing to pay for the actual construction costs, but expects the participating municipality to cover much of the cost of planning and engineering. There is a Golden Valley centric story on this saga in the Sun newspaper at : http://www.mnsun.com/archive.asp?display=story2&year=2002&storyID=86319 Dave Stack Harrison (where a section of the Luce Line Trail (Bassett Creek Trail) is currently under construction) _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
