More Cemar Trail Progress!

 

As exciting as Promontory Point must have been,
the Cemar Trails joins existing trail near 29th St and B Ave NE

The Cemar Trail, which will eventually be a seven-mile direct route from the center of Cedar Rapids to the center of Marion, has made an important connection to the broader trail system in town. The trail under the bridge at 1st Avenue East has been completed...

Note also connections to wide sidewalks on
both sides of 1st Avenue

...and joins a completed spur by Arthur School. 

Crossing 29th Street by A Avenue

The previously constructed portion of the trail runs along an old railroad right of way to 16th Street; from there it's not terribly difficult to connect to the Cedar River Trail by Cedar Lake. (See Linn County Trails Association map here.) For the record, there are a couple of awkward junctures on the way: 

• at the edge of Daniels Park, where H Avenue meets Oakland Road, the trail rather dumps you into traffic, but it looks like crossing at the sidewalk might be an alternative
• from there it's bike lane to Cedar Lake, which can involve some negotiation with traffic entering and exiting I-380 (my solution, to take the interstate down, might be too radical for some)

From there you can go a long, long way, to Elk Run Heights near Waterloo to the north, and to Solon to the south. Eventually you can go ever farther; it's part of the Great American Trail project.

Meanwhile, in the direction of Marion the Cemar Trail still stops at 3rd Avenue and 33rd Street SE, adjacent to Mount Cavalry Cemetery. 

Marion's completed its portion as far south as Highway 100, so there's just 1.3 miles to be built, with completion expected in fall 2025 (Warner 2022). Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds just announced a Destination Iowa award of $3 million to Marion towards completion of the trail as well as a plaza planned for Uptown. (The Destination Iowa program is funded by federal COVID relief funds; such is the condition of American government in 2022.) The City of Marion recently announced trail construction “will begin after easements have been obtained and construction of a sanitary sewer trunk line is complete.” 

I wonder if this modest apartment building...

293 34th St Dr SE

...can then publicize and monetize its proximity to the trail network!

SEE ALSO: "Cemar Trail Progress!" 21 August 2021

HISTORIC CEMAR TRAIL RIDES!

"Cemar Trail," My Green Misadventure, 9 October 2011

Cindy Hadish, "Reconstructed Railroad Bridge Connects to Past as New Trail Link in Marion," Homegrown Iowan, 12 July 2021

Joe Sheller, "In Which Miles Total 356 for ARTN(a)R," CR Biker, 26 July 2020

Catching up on a jaywalking arrest

I recently learned of a horrific ordeal undergone by a New York resident that began with an act of... jaywalking? I'd missed this event when it happened in December 2019, and only found out about it thanks to Shakira Solis, a guest speaker at a recent event on the DACA program at Coe College. Perhaps you knew about this at the time. If you are undocumented, or love someone who is, you surely did. 

Javier Castillo Maradiaga is one of many people caught in the web of America's byzantine immigration policy. The short version of his story, from Correal and Shanahan 2021: He came to the U.S. from Honduras as an 8-year-old child in 2002, and received legal status under DACA in 2012. During the chaos of the Trump administration, his DACA authorization lapsed. Thus he was undocumented when he was arrested by New York City police. Against city policy, particularly since his offense was nonviolent, he was transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in whose custody he remained in various locations until a court ordered his release in March 2021. Last week at Coe, Solis used him as an example of how even DACA protection is far from airtight.

The story struck me, not just as another example of immigration policy gone wrong, but because he was arrested for jaywalking. I am pretty much pro-jaywalking. A Strong Towns article by Daniel Herriges (2020) cites the legal definition as crossing mid-block or against a traffic signal. I do this all the time. In an environment built for (ever-growing) motor vehicles, the main way pedestrians arrive safely at their destinations is by avoiding interactions with them. Whatever it takes to avoid interactions with cars is what you should do. The greatest danger in even semi-walkable areas is from traffic turning at intersections, so if you can cross mid-block, you should. If vehicles are stopped at a traffic light, and you have a clear shot to cross, you should do it. 

Herriges adds that jaywalking is "extremely common" on truly walkable urban streets, which also happen to be the most financially productive; commenter Thomas B. adds, "In NYC, jaywalking is practically a birthrite." Herriges's article includes links to a Streetsblog study showing vastly disproportionate jaywalking arrests of blacks and Latinos, and a video by "Adam Ruins Everything" explaining the origins of criminalized jaywalking in efforts by auto manufacturers to take over city streets from other users.

Jaywalking is often the best choice for pedestrians. Its stigma is borne out of political power shoving the less powerful out of the way, and is mostly enforced in a racist way. U.S. immigration policy is bad enough without using this against them.

SEE ALSO: "Dear America Brings Light in the Heat," 8 July 2021