Cedar Lake Trail
A rail-to-trail corridor through Minneapolis and St. Louis Park, from winter closures and Southwest LRT construction to reopening
The Cedar Lake Trail runs from downtown Minneapolis westward through St. Louis Park along a former railroad corridor that once carried freight for the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway. Opened in the early 1990s, it was among the first rail-to-trail conversions in the Twin Cities region and remains a key link for cyclists and pedestrians connecting the city core to its western suburbs.
The trail is part of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, a roughly 50-mile loop of parkways and trails that encircles Minneapolis, a system developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to give residents access to the city's lakes, parks, and green spaces. In St. Louis Park, the path still passes active rail lines and standing grain elevators, remnants of the industrial economy the original railway was built to serve.
For several years the trail was closed along stretches affected by construction of the Green Line Extension light rail project, during which vegetation began reclaiming sections of the idle pavement. The rebuilt trail reopened with new surfacing, updated lighting beneath underpasses, and replacement street furniture, restoring a commuter and recreational route that had gone dark through much of its closure.
