“I’m down here at 5 or 6 in the morning, and I’m down here again in the afternoon — I try to walk 10 miles a day,” Larrivy, 71, of Piedmont Heights, said. “We see beaver from the pond, bunny rabbits, deer; it’s really nice. They plowed it in the wintertime, and we’ll be out here when it’s 20-30 below.”
On a pristine day earlier this month, Larrivy was passed by Bob and Chris Ostby as the couple enjoyed a bike ride on the paved trail located near the paper mill.
Unlike Larrivy, the couple from West Duluth was aware of the trail section’s closure coming soon — one of two major closures set this summer for the Cross City Trail.
“We were crushed, because we do love it,” Chris, 72, said. “They just opened it up.”
“We were disappointed,” Bob, 70, added. “We think it’s a really cool trail.”
Upon learning of the nearly 1-mile closure in the area of the river known for the Erie Pier Ponds, Larrivy joined the chorus.
“I understand you have stuff you have to do, but a lot of people are going to be surprised,” the retired plumber said, as Corby the dog examined the high grass off the trail.
Terry Larrivy and Corby pause during a Wednesday, May 12, 2021, walk on the Cross City Trail to talk to another walker. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
To learn more about the Cross City Trail closures and detours in both Lincoln Park and West Duluth, the News Tribune spoke with city officials earlier this month.
“The closures are entirely unrelated to one another and qualitatively very different from each other,” said Jim Filby-Williams, the city of Duluth director of parks, properties, and libraries.
The upcoming closure in West Duluth will come less than a year after the popular new section of trail opened last fall. It’s expected to last 12 to 15 months and is necessitated by St. Louis River cleanup work starting in late June.
Meanwhile, the Cross City Trail closure through Lincoln Park has already shut down the trail section along Lower Michigan Street to 22nd Avenue West. It’ll be a three-year closure necessitated by the Twin Ports Interchange reconstruction project. As part of that work, the Minnesota Department of Transportation agreed to spend $257,000 to build the city’s first protected bike lane along West Superior Street. It’s expected to open July 2.
“It’s an exciting project and we’re grateful the state agreed to pay for that, and provide comparable bike accommodations for those that are on the Cross City Trail,” Duluth City Engineer Cindy Voigt said.
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The Cross City Trail is described on the city’s website as a partially constructed “10.3-mile, multi-purpose, non-motorized, wheelchair accessible, paved trail system connecting the Lakewalk in downtown Duluth to the Munger Trail.”
The section along Lower Michigan Street near the M&H gas station was an exciting section of trail for the way it connected downtown to areas west. Commuters were often seen in the early morning using the trail to get to work.
Signs mark the Cross City Trail detour through Lincoln Park on Monday, May 17, 2021. Because of the “can of worms” project, a section of trail will be rerouted from Lower Michigan Street to West Superior Street for three years. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
But while MnDOT has plans to reconstruct the trail before the conclusion of work in 2024, three years of a protected bike lane through the business district along West Superior Street could change that.
“We need to find out the popularity, and see if it’s a viable option to keep it there,” Voigt said.
Filby-Williams concurred.
“This will be the community’s first experience with this kind of improvement,” he said. “We know that we as a community will learn a lot in this experience, and our views about what should be in place following the project may morph.”
The protected bike lane will run along the eastbound lane of West Superior Street — with curb-height transit platforms being built out in front of the intersections with Garfield Avenue and 19th Avenue West.
“Where transit passengers can get off on a raised median, and then cross over the bike lane to the sidewalk,” Voigt said.
In some places the bike path is up on the sidewalk. In others, parking will be reconfigured to help create a 10-foot swath of protected pavement through the heart of Lincoln Park.
“There’s enough space for both the path and the pedestrians to have space in front of the businesses,” Voigt said. “There’s a 3-foot buffer in most places between the vehicles that are going to drive on West Superior Street and the bike lane.”
Until the bike lane is opened in early July, cyclists are being asked to ride on the streets “like they’re legally able to until we get this installed,” Voigt said.
The Cross City Trail is being closed along the St. Louis River in late June to accommodate a $16 million cleanup project on the river and shoreline.
A city news release this week explained the closure of the 0.8-mile section as being from the 40th Avenue West bridge to Recycle Way.
Two bicyclists use the section of the Cross City Trail on Sunday, May 16, 2021, that will close at the end of June to allow the removal of contaminated sediments from two ponds (background) surrounded by a shallow marsh wetland in the St. Louis River Estuary. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are conducting contaminant remediation projects at two open ponds close to the paper plant. The ponds are sometimes referred to as the Erie Pier Ponds, even though the ponds are adjacent to, but not on Erie Pier.
The project will remove approximately 45,000 cubic yards of material contaminated with heavy metals, human-made chemicals and some organic pollutants slow to break down. Removing the contaminated sediment will improve the aquatic environment and ultimately improve the health of the St. Louis River and Lake Superior, the city news release said.
“The sediment remediation project in the ponds behind Erie Pier is an important piece of restoring and reinvesting in the waterfront in West Duluth,” Filby-Williams said.
The area of remediation is a seemingly idyllic wetland filled with constant bird songs, and evidence of beavers felling trees all along the trail. It’s no wonder it’s become a popular place for recreation since its opening last fall. Soon enough, though, it will be the domain of heavy equipment.
“They’ll be using that portion of the Cross City Trail to access the project site, to haul vehicles and equipment and materials,” Filby-Williams said. “At the conclusion of the project, the EPA will restore any damaged or impacted areas of the trail, and we will happily reopen it.”
There will be no protected trail reroutes through West Duluth. Instead, the EPA is providing signed detours along city streets until the trail reopens in September 2022.
Filby-Williams noted the city’s disappointed, too, at having to close the trail so close to last fall’s completion and opening of it.
But because of the positive nature of the work, folks have been understanding — even if they’re frustrated, he said.
“This trail is enormously important to the city and the state, and we wish that it were not necessary to close it for this period, but it is,” Filby-Williams said. “It is crystal clear that there is no way for them to complete their important work without this closure, and so we need to support them in their important work.”
Bob Ostby, the disappointed trail rider, understood.
“We are pleased that they’re cleaning up the St. Louis River watershed,” he said. “But we’re not getting any younger — so if you take a year from us, it’s a bigger deal.”
A bicyclist uses the Cross City Trail on Sunday, May 16, 2021, below the Bong Bridge and near one of the ponds where contaminated sediments will be removed beginning later this year. (Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com)