Yesterday's Journal Star carried two articles that seemed to conflict a bit. Perhaps somebody can explain to me how the two situations jive with one another. On page 1B there was an article titled Hiker/biker bridge over North 27th planned. On page 3B there was Appeals court rules against city in bike trail. The LJS made no effort to connect the two stories.
That strikes me as odd, considering the trail that the $1.76M bridge is a part of has effectively been cut off by the appeals court ruling. In other words, this new bridge will go...nowhere. The city could always reroute the proposed bike trail through the neighborhoods west of 27th Street. But that is, to say the least, a less-than-ideal solution.
It could be argued that the bridge over 27th Street near Y Street is also valuable for your average pedestrian who just wants to cross 27th Street in a manner that doesn't involve dodging cars. Fair enough, there may be a few of those people out there. But using a pedestrian bridge to cross a four-lane street requires traveling way out of your way. Most pedestrians are lazy. They will take the risk of crossing the street rather than walking three times the distance via the bridge. Consider 27th & Highway 2. Pedestrians who just want to cross Highway 2 on the east side don't use the bridge, they cross Highway 2 (illegally) the old fashioned way. The proposed bridge won't require going nearly as far out of the way as the Highway 2 bridge, but the principle is the same.
So if the bridge connects to a terminated bike path, a
nd it doesn't serve any purpose for getting pedestrians across 27th Street, what is it good for? Not much, I propose. It strikes me as another silly -- and expensive! -- attempt to "pretty up" North 27th Street in a way that makes community leaders feel good about themselves without actually doing anything substantive to improve the neighborhood. In other words, the bridge runs the risk of falling into the same category as those silly -- and expensive! -- pseudo-antique street lamps in the area.
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