You know, Mayor TenHaken, you might not have to spend as much on parking ramps if you spent more on bike paths!
The mayor of Sioux Falls has been good about improving his city’s remarkable riverside bike paths. Last night, the city council approved $200,000 to extend the bike path from Legacy Park at Sertoma and 12th out to Family Park off Ellis Road in northwest Sioux Falls. Councilman Greg Neitzert brought this measure to the council:
“Bike trails are a huge priority for citizens,” Neitzert said when the bill was being discussed. “This is a chance to keep the momentum going.”
Neitzert said the trail should be open in early 2021 if all goes according to plan [Carter Woodiel, “Sioux Falls Approves $200,000 Bike Trail Project,” KELO Radio, 2019.11.18].
Naturally, I see the bike path reaching this far out to the northwest corner of Sioux Falls, and I can see the potential to just keep going all the way up Skunk Creek to Hartford. That’s maybe ten or fifteen more miles of trail (depending on how much of the creek curve you follow) through a lovely area that will become solid residential development within a generation, with lots of healthy South Dakotans who will need to get around under their own power after the oil runs out. Keep blazing those trails, Sioux Falls!
Bike trails are beautiful. Mobile home parks are not. Do something about that, Sioux Falls. (My little town, my neighboring towns, and Denver- home to 2 million people, have banned new trailer parks since 1956.) You need three acres of land to have a mobile home in CO (for use while you build a house) but it’s only allowed for four years.
SkunkCreek only goes to Buffalo Ridge, but there is an existing bike trail from there into Hartford.
Porter, last time I was in Colorado (3 years ago) there were still plenty of mobile homes out in the country-side. There was also a HUGE mobile home junk yard just East of Colorado Springs a ways, near Ellicot.
Richard … Every county has the choice. As noted by me before, Colorado Springs is the worst place in the state. Ugly, broke, and run down due to Republican control for a hundred years. Military bases and mega churches. Greeley’s another one. Dirty oil patch town.
Streams and rivers do make great corridors for bike trails, but old rail embankments are even better. very direct for high speeds, and graded to keep the tracks above flood waters.
They also connect small towns naturally. Too bad abandoned rail lines and the associated right-of-ways and embankments have typically been removed and farmed in this state. Missed opportunities.
Bah. Bike paths. But if they build it perhaps that young Ms. Peters who cooked up the law bill 106 will ride her pedal contraption to her fancy job in Sioux Falls.
Here’s good news for non-polluting energy sources such as human legs. It comes from Bloomberg via Numlock News by Walt Hickey:
The Wind Rises
Atmospheric and oceanic shifts have led to increasing wind speeds worldwide. In northern latitudes, average wind speeds have risen 7 percent since 2010 according to new research published in Nature Climate Change, which is good news in the sense that wind farms will produce significantly more energy than previously anticipated. If the trend continues, wind power generation could increase 37 percent. These types of shifts take decades to happen and the increase in wind speeds will continue at least another decade.
Will Mathis, Bloomberg
https://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2019/11/do-bike-studded-tires-really-work.html
Steve tried studded bike tires and was really impressed with them on ice in Anchorage Alaska. I know some of you are avid year round bikers and might find this interesting.
Bike trails, green spaces, parks and similar amenities are proven statistically to enhance cities’ drawing power of younger adults and families that work at higher wage professions and pay more taxes into city coffers.
Bike trails can help with the cop problem of the other post as well. A twofer.
grudz would like bicycles more if only his legs would reach down to the ground and his bald head wouldn’t get blisters. #what?
Hartford is not growing as fast as Harrisburg, but it is growing:
Nelson quotes Hartford’s chamber/ecdev chief as saying that many of the Sioux Falls refugees are young families. Young families have lots of bicycles. They have moms and dads in the prime bike-to-Sioux-Falls age. Extending the bike trail to Hartford would be an excellent boost to both towns.
However, Nelson’s article spotlights one family who say they moved away from near McKennan Park because they preferred the small-town vibe for their kids. To each her own… but I would take a house in or near McKennan Park over a house in Hartford any day.
TAG, as your next Governor, I will divert all funds from marketing campaigns to rail right-of-way acquisitions for recreational purposes. Good bike trails will boost every small town we can connect.
🚴♂️ BIKE TRAILS ~ WE’RE ON ‘EM 🚴♀️
Sioux Falls to Kampeska ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️