The N. Dubuque St. Pedestrian Bridge Over I-80 Will Make Bicycling to North Liberty Via City Park a Lot Safer!

According to Ron Knoche, the City of Iowa City engineer, a Dubuque Street Pedestrian Bridge to go over Interstate-80 on North Dubuque Street is in the design phase now. The Department of Transportation is involved with the City of Iowa City in the project. Work on the bridge is scheduled to begin in April 2015 and should be completed by November 2015. 

The trail from the Foster Road intersection to I-80 will be on the east side of Dubuque Street.  At the south interchange, trail users will cross to the west side of Dubuque Street.  The trail will then continue north crossing I-80 with the pedestrian bridge and then connecting to the trail at the Butler Bridge over the Iowa River.

Provided motorized vehicles don't blow through red lights, this arrangement should save lives.

I remember well the time a big black Lincoln Continental drove me and my bicycle right off the road as I rode out North Dubuque Street on an organized bike ride. Naively, I called the Iowa City police. When a police officer finally showed up, he told me, "You're insane to ride a bicycle here at this time of day."

I explained, "It's an organized ride. I didn't choose the route."

Despite the fact that there was no safe way to leave Iowa City on a bicycle in any direction at that time, all my explanation proved to him was that mine was not just an act of individual insanity but group insanity. 

The Butler Bridge and the Dubuque Street Pedestrian Bridge will keep me out of the way of whatever black Lincoln or Yukon that chooses to run me off of North Dubuque Street. I already know not to ask the cops for help unless it's a dire emergency and an ambulance is on the way, in which case I will get all the help I need and then some. (You know who you are, and I thank you! You won my license plate contest and my eternal gratitude.)

I've got my new pink plaid MelonHead kilt hanging up as incentive for warmer weather and bicycling on two new hips instead of one! This has been the longest winter of my life and probably everyone's life at this point.

Even Bruce Aune, one of the anchors on KCRG TV News, slipped and responded to meteorologist Joe Winters' latest forecast with "That's terrible!"

My sentiments exactly. I know that as soon as I've had my surgery and am released to go home to convalesce, the weather will miraculously turn warm and I'll be able to hobble around on my walker outside. That's the physical therapy for hip replacement surgery, a few exercises indoors, and then "walk, walk, walk" and then "walk some more!"

After that, I look forward to bicycling and going on RAGBRAI. Safe trails out of Iowa City will be a big help, not only in my training but in the many other Iowa Citians' training and transportation to and from North Liberty to Iowa City. It's also a way to be healthy and save Planet Earth from extinction.