For more than a decade, the Midtown Greenway has helped knit together the people, neighborhoods, and economy of South Minneapolis. So what about North and Northeast Minneapolis? How do we walk, bike, or roll east or west across the heart of our many neighborhoods?

That is a question without a compelling answer … so far.

The Great Northern Greenway is a vision and proposal to address just that need: a proposal to seamlessly connect neighbors through the heart of Northeast and North Minneapolis. Building on existing plans and investments, the Great Northern Greenway will provide an effortless passage across the city.

In North Minneapolis, the project will leverage trail improvements already being made along 26th Avenue North, which extends from Theodore Wirth Park at the city’s western edge to the Mississippi River. In Northeast Minneapolis, the project will draw on the existing path part of 18th Avenue Northeast, and work to address existing gaps in that route.

Perhaps most importantly, tying this all together, will be a river crossing, aligning these two routes to cross at the existing Burlington Northern Santa Fe Rail bridge across the Mississippi River. And existing and planned connections along the river will allow for easy north-south travel.

Zoom in and pan with the controls/cursor to see street names. For context, surrounding bicycle connections are shown below.

Three meetings have been held to date to establish a vision for the Great Northern Greenway - one in Northeast on January 29th 2016, and one on the Northside on March 3rd.  A final meeting focused on the corridor as a whole was held on March 15th.

Project overview | Northside meeting results | Northeast meeting results | Combined meeting results