Vermillion Bikeways Master Plan

his partnership of the state, the community, and the consultant team resulted in this university city’s first comprehensive bikeway network plan coupled with a strategic implementation program. The network was designed to take advantage of integrating separated trail segments into a unified, low-stress system that would help connect the Vermillion and University of South Dakota communities, provide safe access to major community destinations and job centers, and address specific problems. An intensive community engagement effort that included stakeholder group discussions, online surveys, interactive mapping, and public planning workshops identified key problems including barriers and a concentration of key destinations along the city’s least “bikeable” corridors. Unconventional solutions included using excess capacity to create protected bike lanes in this corridor and to solve hazards in the downtown district created by an offset street pattern by proposing a downtown circulator loop.