Минеаполис қаласындағы Седар көлі жолы

Shared use path in Minneapolis

Cedar Lake Trail is a 4.3 mile (7 km), shared use path in the U. S. state of Minnesota, from downtown Minneapolis to the neighboring suburb of St. Louis Park. The trail begins at its eastern trailhead in downtown Minneapolis and continues west to Minnesota State Highway 100 in St. Louis Park At the trail's west end, a paved path continues for another 4.2 mile (7 km) through St. Louis Park to Hopkins under the former name of Hutchinson Spur Trail ("Hutch Spur"), but known as North Cedar Lake Regional Trail since 2009. In 2019, large portions of the Cedar Lake Trail were closed due to construction of the Southwest LRT extension with expected reopening in 2021 or 2022.

The trail is located in areas that were formerly railroad yards for the Great Northern Railway and the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway. When Burlington Northern Railroad (the successor to Great Northern) consolidated its facilities elsewhere, and the Chicago and North Western (the successor to Minneapolis and St. Louis) dismantled the rail facilities, the land became available for use as parkland. It was at that time, starting in 1989, that the Cedar Lake Park Association rallied thousands of citizens and spearheaded (raising over $500,000) the campaign to purchase the land from the railroad and create Cedar Lake Park. Then in 1995, the association, along with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and Minneapolis Public Works, lead the effort to create the Cedar Lake Regional Trail. An additional $500,000 in funding for the trail came from association members, the rest came from federal and state agencies, totaling $1.6 million. This amount funded the first two segments of the trail, from Highway 100 in the west, to Royalston Avenue near downtown Minneapolis, which were constructed in 1995.

Phase III of the Cedar Lake Regional Trail, which extends the east end of the trail about 1 mile (2 km) under Target Field and past the Target Field train station to reach West River Parkway along the Mississippi River, began construction in the summer of 2010. It was expected to be completed in November 2010. Unfortunately the cold weather in October and November delayed completion of the trail to the river. This final trail segment officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony on June 14, 2011. The planned Southwest Corridor light rail line will parallel the Cedar Lake Trail from near Royalston Avenue southwest to just past Interstate 394, a distance of about 1.5 mile (2 km). At that point, the light rail line will diverge to the southwest parallel to the Kenilworth Trail. The line is currently expected to open in 2016. The Cedar Lake Park Association (CLPA), a grass roots citizens group that spearheaded the campaign to buy the land and built the trail in the 1990s, noted in their Fall 2010 Update that an at grade crossing of Cedar Lake Regional Trail and the Southwest LRT would pose several problems, including severe traffic flow restrictions for bicycles and pedestrians, as well as safety concerns. CLPA is advocating a grade separated crossing. The third and final segment of the trail, shadowing the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) mainline through the heart of a dense urban infrastructure, cost $9.2 million, according to Minneapolis Public Works Project Manager Jack Yuzna. The final segment took over 11 years to plan and construct as alignments changed and entities such as the Minnesota Ballpark Authority sought to locate the new Twins stadium in the warehouse district. Eventually Target Field was built cantilevered out over the space for the trail and the BNSF moved its tracks to accommodate both the trail and the Ballpark Authority. During all of this time, indeed, since the first envisioning of a trail from Hwy 100 to the Mississippi River by Theodore Wirth III in his Cedar Lake Park & Trail Feasibility Study (1989), the Cedar Lake Park Association, a volunteer citizens activist organization, has led the way. As Mayor R. T. Rybak noted in his speech at the ribbon cutting ceremony, "Citizens groups like the Cedar Lake Park Association hold [public official's] feet to the fire to make sure projects like this get done."