Minneapolis, ever working to improve the community, is completing several new bike paths around the city to expand that network and make it easier for people to use the trails as alternative transportation.

Donald Pflaum, a transportation engineer for Minneapolis Public Works, said the city is committed to building this resource across the city so that no one is left out. An estimated 10,000 people bike on Minneapolis streets every day, although about half of them are university students.

The largest bike path project currently underway is the Midtown Greenway, which will run from the western edge of the city to Hiawatha Avenue along an old railroad line and to the Mississippi. The projected cost is $9.5 million.

David Strom, president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, said he is all for biking, but believes the city is diverting too much money from transportation funds for bike trails. He asserts most people bike for recreation, not as alternative transportation.

A bike path to the University of Minnesota is planned for next year. Mayor Rybak said that connecting the university and northeast Minneapolis to the rest of the bike path system is a high priority for him, and that the university area had been ignored when it comes to proposed bike paths.

It will cost about $800,000. Eighty percent of the money for that project will be federally funded, with the university and the city splitting the rest of the cost.