Some things have gotten better and some worse in Minneapolis. Better: The Washington Ave Bridge over the Mississippi River has reopened. Bikes and pedestrians have full access to the upper deck of the bridge again. The bridge had been closed due to structural problems. The problems have been corrected.

Worse: Marquette Ave and 2nd St in Downtown have been turned into gravel lanes as the city reworks Marquette to make it into a bus transit corridor. Cyclists can weave through the construction, but will have to do it on a dirt and gravel lane. The bike lanes will not come back, but when the project is finished, most buses will be rerouted from Nicollet Mall to Marquette and bikes will again have access to the the mall 24 hours per day.

Upcoming changes: Cedar Lake Trail will be extended to the river in 2009 and 2010. Hennepin Ave and 1st Ave will be converted to 2 way streets and the Hiawatha Trail will be connected to the LRT Trail at 11th Ave.

Overall, bicycle facilities are moving in the right direction Downtown, but the changes require some large scale reconstruction. Use caution when riding around the construction areas.

One of the toughest tasks when printing is discovering a mistake just as the presses begin to roll. This is one of those mistakes. Several roads north of Racine slipped through without labels. Here’s the corrected version. The new Milwaukee and SE Wisconsin Bike Map is scheduled for release on April 20. We’ll get them into the distribution system ASAP. With a little luck, you should be able to order them through your local bike shop or bookstore within a week. You can also order them directly through bikeverywhere by going to our store.