St. Louis Beacon covers recently completed Gateway Bike Plan

The St. Louis Beacon gave some nice coverage this week to Great Rivers Greenway and the recently completed Gateway Bike Plan:

When it comes to being a bike-friendly city, St. Louis seems to have a flat tire. That said, one local organization is looking to connect St. Louis cycling routes to promote healthy living and environmental consciousness.

Great Rivers Greenway, a public organization dedicated to developing the region’s parks, trails and greenways, recently led the effort to create the Gateway Bike Plan. Great Rivers Greenway is the organization behind The River Ring – an interconnecting web of greenways, bike routes and parks throughout the St. Louis area that totals more than 600 miles.

The Gateway Bike Plan serves a similar purpose: to connect St. Louis with bicycle accessible routes that, if all goes as planned, will total 1,011 miles. The plan has been finished for a few months, now comes the followup and more bicycle-friendly facilities.

“We basically just took our River Ring plan and tied it together with one system,” said Todd Antoine, deputy director for planning at GRG. “This is a progressive community that really wants to take bicycling seriously.” The Gateway Bike Plan was finished in August after 16 months of work with MODOT, the City of St. Louis, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Trailnet, other organizations and more than 100 municipalities.

If anything, Antoine said, bringing municipalities together was a great achievement.

“That was one thing that really came out of the plan and talking in the meetings with everyone: more communication,” he said.