The northern section of the Beer Line Trail between Gordon Park and Wright Street is open and paved. This trail follows the former train track that service the Schlitz and Pabst breweries. The new trail is at the edge of the bluff above the Milwaukee River. South of this section the trail that climbs up the bluff (or climbs down, depending on your direction) from Commerce Street to the new trail is still under construction.

Update (October 16, 2010): the entire trail is now open.

This Labor Day, I decided to ride Waukesha County’s Lake Country Trail to view the progress of its repaving project. Both the eastern and western sections have been paved. However the project is not finished even in these sections, despite the original target completion date of July 23. The barricades announcing the trail is closed are still up, if pushed out of the way. Landscaping along the shoulders, guard rails, painting, and signage are still missing from these sections. The trail is officially closed to allow crews to finish these jobs.

The middle section, mostly in Naga-Waukee county park, is another matter. Except for a section of rerouted trail at the intersection of highway 83, this section has been left unchanged. Although there are several paved sections where the trail is steep, several spots are sandy and difficult going for road bikes. According to the county’s web site, work on this section is slated to start in early September.

The visitor center near the eastern end of the trail is a good place to start for bicyclists arriving by car from the east. For those arriving by bike, a better option is to take the bike trail along county G from Waukesha. Other places to park along the trail are the park and ride lot at highway 83, Cushing Park west of Delafield, and along city streets in Delafield and Oconomowoc.

A new trail along Cushing Park Road is planned to connect the Lake Country and Glacial Drumlin trails. Currently it stops where the Ice Age Trail enters Lapham Peak State Park. Bicycles are prohibited on this section of the Ice Age Trail.

A nice loop trip is to start at Cushing Park, ride the trail to Oconomowoc and then return via road, skirting Oconomowoc Lake and having views of several other lakes and a former mill pond (see the map for details). In fact, the roads are considerably more scenic than the trail. Despite the difference in scenary, I encountered far more bikes on the trail section of the route.

This route can be extended with a ride around Lake LaBelle. The ride around the lake includes several dead-end roads that are connected by short bike paths. (In a case of apparent overkill, speed bumps were added when a section of road was converted to bike path.) For me, part of the appeal of both lakes is that one rides along the water.

Update (October 16, 2010). Construction has been finished on both the eastern and western sections of the trail. Despite the dates given on the Waukesha county website, there is no sign of impending improvements on the middle section. Much of this section is already paved because of steep hills. But other parts are difficult because of loose sand.

Adventure Cycling has been working with the US Department of Transportation to develop a system of marked bike routes across the state. One of the proposed routes would run from Winona Minnesota to the Lake Ferry in Milwaukee, using mostly bike trails to cross Wisconsin (including the Great River Trail, the LaCrosse River Trail, the Sparta-Elroy Trail, the 400 Trail, and the Glacial Drumlin Trail. (Some time ago, I posted a description of much of this route on my web site.)

For discussions of the overall project click here for the US Department of Transportation and here for Adventure Cycling. It appears from a map of the proposed system that the proposed Wisconsin segment is part of proposed route 30, which will run west through Minneapolis to beyond Billings and east, after cross the lake, to Detroit.

A number of states, particularly in the Northeast now have marked and numbered long-distance bicycle routes. In the 1970s, Wisconsin pioneered with two routes, one from LaCrosse to Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha, and the second running north from LaCrosse to Lake Superior. At some point these routes were abandoned as attention turned more to developing bike trails, particularly on abandoned railroad lines.

Upper Midwest riders have recognized the incredible roads of SW Wisconsin for decades, but in the last few days the word has gotten out to a wider population. In its bid for the 2014 Olympics, Chicago’s Olympic Committee picked a route around Blue Mounds State Park, west of Madison for the challenging terrain and the low traffic roads according to the New York Times. Chicago lost out, but cyclists can still ride the route. For a complete guide to the roads in the area, check the Madison and Dane County Bike Map.

Another national publication, Adventure Cycling, featured Trempealeau County, along the Mississippi River as another cyclist’s destination.

A story in this morning’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that construction has finally started on the extension of the Beer Line Trail that would follow the Milwaukee River from North Avenue to Locust Street. For several years, the trail came to a dead end in a field shortly after crossing under the North Avenue bridge.

In addition to the bridge over Capitol Drive in Shorewood which is presently being replaced, the trail in Estabrook park is presently closed because of reconstruction of the Estabrook Parkway and the Milwaukee River Parkway is also closed for construction, closing the trail that runs next to it. Probably the most direct detour is to follow Wilson Drive north from Capitol, continuing on Santa Monica Boulevard. Then go west on Bender to rejoin the Oak Leaf trail (see the Milwaukee map for details).

Milwaukee recently issued a draft of a bicycle plan prepared with the Wisconsin Bicycle Federation. The public comment period runs through the end of July. Clearly the plan is a sign that bicycles are getting a lot more attention in planning transportation in Milwaukee. Here are my comments on the plan:

Bike boulevards. I really like the concept. I think they will do a lot to encourage people to bike (and also strengthen neighborhoods). With that in mind, here are a few more suggestions:

* An east-side alternative to the Prospect/Farwell bike lanes (which
have fairly fast traffic and are often blocked by double-parked
delivery vehicles). Starting at the Urban Ecology Center, it would
go south on Newhall, then switch over to Warren, ending at Ogden.
I took it home from the public meeting. It had little traffic. The
major issues are crossing Brady and North. Also the one-way
streets north of Brady.
* Jefferson St. between the Third Ward and Ogden/Water. Already
interrupted in several places. The sidewalks need to be widened.
Perhaps a place for a cycle track. The tunnel under I794 is narrow
when pedestrians are walking to parking.
* 51st St on the south side. Already has many of the properties of a
bike boulevard with the interruptions at the KK Parkway, the
Morgan/Forest Home triangle, and in Greenfield. A place where joint
planning with Greenfield and West Allis would be useful.
* Keefe/Townsend from Humboldt to Dineen Park

I real bike desert is the far northwest side. I would hope that at least one of the north-south roads connecting to Mequon would be marked for future improvement, with decent shoulders at the very least.

While Roosevelt Blvd itself is very nice, both ends are problematic. Perhaps this is a place where the bicyclist could be directed to use the sidewalk (as in Madison and Evanston). In any case, I think a bike plan should not leave a bicyclist hanging.

I am bothered by the number of proposed bike paths that are shown as existing (also a problem with the free bike map). These include the Beer Line trail between North and Locust and between Locust and Burleigh, the KK trail (page 24 describes it as existing) along Rosedale, several proposed branches of the Hank Aaron trail (as well as HAST routes on roads), and a proposed rail conversion south of Washington. Perhaps these should be converted to yellow on the maps, so it is clear they are proposed trails (perhaps proposed county trails could also be shown, to see how they would fit in, as well as any proposals from suburbs).

I would like to see more discussion on the effect of traffic signals on bicyclists. Particular problems are inaccessible walk buttons (or ones that don’t work), buried sensors that don’t detect bicycles (all of them, in my experience), and the very long signal cycle time that seems standard in Wisconsin. (I recently spent a few days bicycling in Chico, CA and was struck that the typical signal seemed less than half that in Milwaukee. There was much less temptation to run the light. A signal on a trail went to yellow for the cars as soon as I pushed it.)

Here is a note I just received from Menomonee Valley Partners:

There will be a lot of construction work this summer along the western end of the Hank Aaron State Trail.  From this week through the end of September, the Trail will be rerouted from the smokestacks just west of the 35th Street Viaduct to Selig Drive.  There will be a temporary detour just before the smokestacks that routes the Trail along the Canal Street median, then back along the Trail for about a block, and then another temporary detour that crosses Canal Street at the east end of the Derse, Inc. property, follows their sidewalk until Selig Drive, and the crosses back over onto the Trail.

Construction is starting this week on the Canal Street side of the Valley Passage project, and later this summer construction will start immediately across the street for the Ingeteam development in the Menomonee Valley Industrial Center.  Please be cautious in this area since there will be a lot of construction activity here.  By the end of the year, the Valley Passage will be open as a trailhead in the Silver City neighborhood and the Trail will extend west to 94th Place.

Summer construction has started in Wisconsin and is affecting several bike trails shown on the Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin map. Two of these involve the replacement of bridges built for trains with bicycle bridges. The other two discussed here are projects to pave previously unpaved trails.
The first bridge project is the crossing of 124th Street. It connects the New Berlin Trail with Greenfield Park and Milwaukee County’s Oak Leaf Trail.

In Shorewood, the bridge that carries the Oak Leaf Trail over Capitol Drive is being replaced. With both bridge projects, detours are posted. UPDATE (July 12): The is now open.
In Waukesha county, the Lake County Trail is being paved. Currently the western section between Nagawicka Park and county B is closed for construction (west of county B, the trail is already paved). Construction on the eastern section is scheduled to start in July. UPDATE (July 12): The entire trail is now barricaded.
In southern Racine county, the county trail is closed between Racine and the Kenosha county line. Signs mark a detour from Racine to Kenosha county. UPDATE (July 7, 2010): this trail is now open and much improved.