Branch Street Trestle

President Lewis Reed and I joined officials from Missouri and Illinois and local bikers from both states today for a hot, windy ceremony mid-bridge celebrating the opening of the bikeway across the McKinley Bridge, and the new Branch Street trestle. Together, the two projects will link new and future bicycle and greenway projects in Missouri and Illinois.

I would like to thank the Great Rivers Greenway District; the Metro-East Park and Recreation District; Illinois Department of Transportation; and Missouri Department of Transportation for all their collaborative planning, designing, financing, and building to get this done with the City of St. Louis.

As soon as the bands were finished playing this afternoon, I stopped to talk to a group of bikers heading over the trestle and across the bridge. They told me they planned to cross to Illinois, head north up Route 3, and cross back into Missouri over the bikeway on the Eads Bridge. They looked excited.