One of the Few Safe Places Left for Pedestrians, Dogs, and Artists

The Nine Mile Creek Corridor has some of the steepest paved trails in the Metro Area. We should have learned that combining bicycles and pedestrians at the bottom of steep hills is deadly. The last time we paved a trail through the woods down a steep hill a woman was killed, who was a friend to many of us, as a cyclist rode down from Highwood Drive through the tunnel into Hyland.

Right now, the Corridor is safe for pedestrians, safe for people with dogs on long leashes, safe for our friend to set up his easel and canvas at the perfect spot in the middle of the trail without anyone yelling at him. And some want to change that? Why?

I have been a homeowner in East Dwan for 5 decades. The creek bed is my playground. I have canoed the flood waters riding above the railings of the last downstream bridge and out through the trees into the lake. There is a single-track on the downstream end of the lake which was probably abandoned 50 years ago and needs a little work to clear some deadfall, but not much. The cut into the hill is already there. We could be smart and run that existing trail around the hill just below James Road and designate it as a bikes-only fun route to the MN river from high on the 106th street hill. Being an unpaved single-track we don't have to take down trees (except the dead ash trees) and we don't make the creek area any more dangerous. Everyone wins.

I bike the NMC Regional Trail four times a week and I always feel bad when dog owners have to restrain their pets every time I pass by. I also feel nervous when I coast down the hill from 70th and Cahill around that race-track-shaped turn into the tunnel at 22 miles an hour. It should have been shaped like a rectangle with two sharp 90 degree turns. But, then, nobody asked me or anyone else about safe path design.

So let's keep it safe down there for eveyone. Please.