City of Minneapolis Drafting Pedestrian Master Plan

The City of Minneapolis is developing a plan to create “a great walking city where people choose to walk for transportation, recreation, and health.” The Pedestrian Master Plan will look 20 years into the future and will layout the importance of walkable streets, ways to improve mobility and access, and provide recommendations for new funding to improve the city’s overall pedestrian atmosphere.

This planning document is being partially funded with a $150,000 grant from the Bike Walk Twin Cities initiative, which was awarded in June, 2007.

The Pedestrian Master Plan is still in its draft stage. A final draft will be available later this year. The City of Minneapolis has identified the goals of the plan as:

• Assess the current pedestrian environment, including where people walk, physical barriers to walking, sidewalk and street conditions, and pedestrian safety.
• Assess the effectiveness of current policies and practices regarding the design, construction, maintenance, and funding of pedestrian facilities and recommend improvements where needed.
• Prioritize physical improvements over the next 20 years, identifying short-term, low-cost improvements that can be implemented immediately, as well as more complex, long-term improvements.
• Develop a design guide to help City staff, neighborhoods, property owners, and others to understand the specifics of how to design walkable streets and places.
• Recommend funding and implementation strategies for making the best use of scarce resources, implementing low-cost improvements, obtaining new funding, and increasing walking through promotion and events.

For more information on the progress of the Minneapolis Pedestrian Master Plan, contact:

Anna Flintoft, Transportation Planner
Minneapolis Dept of Public Works - Transportation Planning and Engineering
309 2nd Avenue South - Room 301, Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 673-3885
anna.flintoft@ci.minneapolis.mn.us