Starting with today's home opener, Minnesota Twins fans can combine their love of baseball with their devotion to the bicycle.
Monday is the debut of the Twins' new Target Field, and one of its advantages over the old Metrodome is that a bicycle path — the Cedar Lake Trail — heads right to the new ballpark from the western suburbs.
To further welcome cyclists, the new stadium has space for 300 bicycles in racks behind the third base wall on the northwest side of the ballpark.
Bike trail network
Opened in 1995, the Cedar Lake Trail rolls from the west for about 3 1/2 miles as one of the main bike routes into downtown from a network of other trails on that side of town.
Along the way it connects with the 4-mile Hutchinson Spur Trail and the 1 1/2-mile Kenilworth Spur Trail. The Kenilworth connects to the 4-mile Midtown Greenway Trail and the 5-mile Southwest LRT Trail. More trails.
Researching all this, I was reminded that Bicycling magazine named Minneapolis its No. 1 bicycle-friendly city in the US. Some might consider that a bad call, but baseball fans in Minneapolis would probably agree with it.
Extension
The city is working on Phase 3 of the Cedar Lake Trail that will connect it to bike trails to the east of the stadium, such as the bike path along the West River Parkway.
The $9.2 million pricetag for this 1-mile extension has been labelled too expensive by critics. Proponents point out that it completes the bike trail system to the river and does not cross one street. It even goes beneath the Target Field in a tunnel.
It also completes a bike trail network envisioned for the city a century ago. If bicycling is as popular in Minneapolis as many people say, then this trail system should do a lot to reduce car traffic to the stadium.
In this video shot last year, a cyclist checks the bike route into the area of the ballfield.
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