Here where I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana we have a trail which at this time lacks a connecting section between what is built to the south and what is built to the north. I am talking about the Pufferbelly Trail which I have written about before. The section which needs to be built to connect these existing sections must cross a busy six lane highway (Coliseum Blvd). Obviously the very safest way to accomplish this is to build a bridge which goes up and over the highway. That is the eventual plan but that costs big bucks which the city does not have at this time. So for now the plan is to have a street level crossing. I have to admit that has me concerned. We have already had two trail users killed on this trail on the north section. Both were hit by cars as they attempted to cross roads in the crosswalks. And these were only 2 lane roads and not heavy traffic like Coliseum Blvd. In both fatalities the car drivers were at fault.
On the same trail we have a bridge over another often busy street (West State Blvd). It is really nice and is great to use.
Coliseum Blvd. aleady has several traffic lights and one more is not going to be welcome by motorists. Below is a map of the section of the Pufferbelly Trail which is suppose to be built next year. Coliseum Blvd. was originally built as a by-pass but it didn’t last long before it was all built up and very congested. In the aggrevation and frustration that followed it became known as the 7 mile long parking lot.
On the map below the section which needs to be built yet is shown in orange. The sections shown in red are already built and in use.
In the satellite image below it shows where the crossing will be located. It shows that there will be a “refuge island” out in the middle of Coliseum Blvd. Personally I would like to see some sort of gates come down stopping traffic so that they could not get to trail users without crashing thru the gates.
Here is a street view of the area on Coliseum Blvd. where the Pufferbelly Trail will cross. As you can see there are 6 lanes of traffic. The one side doesn’t appear to be very busy as traffic behind the camera is stopped by a traffic light when the picture was taken.
At another busy road (Dupont Rd.) they built the trail going under the road which is even nicer than a bridge going over a road. They were able to do this while rebuilding the road. I think the road project paid for it and a good chunk of the money came from the State of Indiana.
Although I am somewhat terrified at the thought of crossing this busy road (Coliseum Blvd.) I am looking forward to having this connecting link completed so trail users have a way to ride the entire trail. They are currently working on completing the trail north on to the county line where the next county will continue it to their northern county line and so on with each county involved. Eventually it should be an 83 or so mile long trail one can ride. I will probably be too old by then to ride it. Meanwhile my plan is to …
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