Planned bike trail for Roseville and Falcon Heights delayed until spring

A federally funded bike trail project in Roseville and Falcon Heights will be delayed until spring as the planning process continues.

"The final plans have been a little bit more difficult to get together," said Justin Miller, Falcon Heights city administrator.

The $1.08 million Fairview Pathway project involves coordination between the cities as well as the University of Minnesota. The cooperation of homeowners and businesses along the proposed trail route also is required.

The planned trail would link the university transit way to the Rosedale Mall area by going through the St. Paul campus and Falcon Heights.

Construction was expected to begin this fall, after the State Fair ended, but Miller said lengthy planning caused the project to spill into next year.

The plans for the new sidewalks and bike pathways fall to one engineer -- Deb Bloom, the city engineer for Roseville and Falcon Heights.

Safety is the top priority, Bloom said. "We're also looking at how the existing properties are going to sit in with the new pathway."

The Gibbs Museum of Pioneer and Dakotah Life is among those, said Priscilla Farnham, executive director of the Ramsey County Historical Society, which owns and operates the museum.

Farnham said she was confident they would come to an agreement with the cities, but "they didn't have sidewalks in 1850."

Bloom said bids for construction of the trails are expected to go out in December and will require final approval by the Roseville City Council.

"It's a great project to connect not only Roseville and Falcon Heights, [but also] the Minneapolis area," said Bill Malinen, Roseville city manager. "You get a lot of bang for the buck."

The federal money was awarded in May 2008, Miller said, through a grant administered by Transit for Livable Communities.

In addition to the Fairview Pathway, the federal money has funded other biking and walking projects, such as the Bike Share program that recently debuted in Minneapolis. In all, about 90 miles of new bike lanes and sidewalks will be added to the Twin Cities, Reeves estimated.