Minnesota transportation officials have plotted out a detailed road map that they hope will encourage people across the state to choose walking from place to place more often than driving.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) Statewide Pedestrian System Plan, two years in the making at a cost of roughly $600,000, provides policy and investment guidance to government decisionmakers for what can be done over the next 20 years to improve where people walk across and along state roads and highways.
"This plan provides an important framework and will help ensure we are meeting the needs and interests of people today and into the future," Commissioner Margaret Anderson Kelliher said in a statement accompanying last week's release of the 136-page report that included citizen input from across the state.
"Creating safe places for people to walk is essential to improving equity and mobility, addressing climate change, and ultimately providing a better quality of life for everyone," she said.
Among the goals that officials kept in mind as they pulled together the photo- and chart-laden report: promote walking as essential and not just an option; make walking safer and more enjoyable; and create more space for pedestrians.
"Our state's quality of life depends on creating safe places for people to walk," read Kelliher's opening comments in the report. "Minnesotans walk to work, to visit the doctor and to the grocery store. Others may walk for everyday exercise or spend quality time with family and friends."
MnDOT received feedback from 2,700 people statewide that was taken into account ahead of the report's release. The agency said it found that three-fourths of respondents "completely support" improvements for walking.
At the top on the public's list of walking-friendly priorities is maintenance. "The consensus among members of the general public is that sidewalks and paths aren't maintained as well as roads in the winter," the report read.