Trails and sidewalks

It didn't take many rides before I jumped over and read bicyclesafe.com. If you haven't read it it's a must read.
But one recurring theme is this: Sidewalks are dangerous for one big reason; they require you to cross streets and bicycles are too fast for cars to keep track of them when they're on a sidewalk. Not to mention the fact that they're not wide enough to accommodate two mediocre cyclists passing or even a cyclist passing a walker.

So what does Lincoln do with about half of its paved trail miles? It widens sidewalks on major streets: The Old Cheney Trail (which is mostly redundant with Boosalis), the 84th trail, etc.

The irritating part isn't that they do it, but that they publish it as a part of the great trails network. Seriously, don't call it a trail. At best it's a nice place to walk (although given the lack of extra grass space on the Old Cheney trail I wouldn't even want to walk on it).


The trails Lincoln does have are quite nice though. Even though street crossings are common and bridges are rare there are certainly some highlights:
The 27th/hwy 2 bridge is very impressive. Although I understand it was built recently, I'd be interested to know how the concrete is already "messed up."

Anyway, note to the city: Try to build on the outskirts of the city, we can get around town but it's nice to have long (more than 1-2 miles) stretches between road crossings. Des Moines gets this using rails to trails (and they're smarter than using crushed limestone, it's called asphalt).