Sioux City IA adding $2.5 million bike trail expansion along Missouri River | SiouxlandProud

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

According to the Governing Body of Sports Cycling, nearly one in three Americans will ride a bike this year. In Sioux City, local leaders are hard at work making sure some of that pedal power happens here.

The paved trail along the Missouri River will cover some 12 miles, connecting Chautauqua Park on the city’s Southside to Riverside Park near the Iowa-South Dakota border. . . .

With a price tag of about $2.5 million, the project wouldn’t happen without community support. Just this week, the Missouri River Historical Development (MRHD) handed over a check for almost half that total.

Link: 

Sioux City IA adding $2.5 million bike trail expansion along Missouri River | SiouxlandProud

MoBikeFed comment: It is good to know what some of our near neighbors are doing--and how much they are investing in bicycling infrastructure.

The answer--usually--is quite a lot, and often quite a lot more than comparable Missouri communities are.

This 12 mile Sioux City river trail, for example, will connect all the way from the southeast to northwest sides of Sioux City, Iowa--all the way along the north bank of the Missouri River from one side of the city to the other.

That is an extraordinarily ambitious riverfront trail system for most cities-easily the equal of the St Louis Riverfront Trail or Kansas City Riverfront Heritage Trail, undertaken by a city a fraction the size of Kansas City or St Louis.

Sioux City has a population if 82,000. If it were in Missouri, it would be the 8th most populous city, falling in between O'Fallon and St Joseph.

Are all of the Missouri's 8 largest cities--Kansas City, St Louis, Springfield, Columbia, Independence, Lee's Summit, O'Fallon, and St. Joseph--investing in the millions of dollars in their trail and bikeways system every year?

Short answer: Some are and some are not.

You can find out more about Sioux City's regional trails program and progress in getting to this point here:

https://www.sioux-city.org/government/departments-g-p/parks-recreation-d...
https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/state-and-regional/progress-netw...
https://siouxcityjournal.com/special-section/local/rec/progress-completi...

The new trail will plug directly into the northwest end of MoBikeFed's Lewis & Clark Missouri River Adventure gravel cycling route:

https://ridewithgps.com/events/105329-lewis-clark-missouri-river-adventu...

The route (currently in beta/development status) had previously stopped on the southeast side of Sioux City--precisely because it was too difficult to find a good, safe bicycle route that followed the river through the city.

Now the route will be able to extend at least 12 more miles along the Missouri River!