76th Street

January 10th at Richfield city hall, was the presentation of preferred alternative. That is, bike lanes on BOTH 76th and 75th and sidewalks on both sides on 76th following the complete span from 35W to Cedar Avenue. So needless to say I was doing the happy dance. At the January 2nd Transportation Commission Meeting, they voted to go with recommending to the city council the alternative, adding in the bike lanes and extending the sidewalk from Nicollet to Cedar. The presentation itself was interesting. I was the first time I saw representatives from the Metropolitan Council as well as the The Three Rivers Park District. Both were on hand to talk about the different aspects of the project, the Metropolitan Council talked about ever-not-so-sexy but important sewer project and the Three Rivers Park District talked about and answered questions about the trail. The one thing of interest was other than the great news about the path improvements was that there looks like there are no plans for boulevard trees due to the narrowness of the boulevard… that has me confused and I find it hard to believe, I have lived in Minneapolis and anyone from there can tell you how Minneapolis can grow mighty trees on slivers of boulevards half the size of what is proposed. So all this does give the impression that the planning part it close to completion, however that would be an error. There is still at least three more meetings and one being with the Community Services Commission. The plan also has to get voted on by the city council before Pinocchio can become a real boy.