City of Duluth Active Transportation Action Plan

This project is led by a coalition that includes representatives of the City of Duluth, MnDOT, Vibrant Streets Duluth, Bike MN, Towards Zero Deaths, Zeitgeist, Essentia Health, the American Indian Community Housing Organization, and a disability commission. This Active Transportation Plan is funded through MnDOT’s Active Transportation Program.

The following vision and goals will guide the future of active transportation in Duluth:

Vision

A vibrant 2nd Street that supports the growing number of residents along the corridor, accommodates multimodal travel, and welcomes people of all ages and abilities to walk, bike, and roll by providing safe, comfortable, and convenient active transportation facilities year-round.

Goals

• Safety: Follows street design best practices to provide dedicated facilities for multimodal travel, utilizes traffic calming measures to lower vehicle speeds, enhancing safety so all road users can comfortably travel along and across the corridor.
• All-Season Use: Plans for maintenance throughout all seasons, ensuring reliable active transportation options year-round.
• All Ages & Abilities: Creates a comfortable and convenient network that prioritizes the most vulnerable roadway users, improving community access and safety.
• All Modes: Right-sizes corridor to serve pedestrians and households without a motor vehicle, adds dedicated bicycling facility to address latent demand for biking, acknowledges 2nd Street’s role as a key corridor in Duluth’s topography, streamlining efficiency of corridor movement and encouraging use of active modes as population along corridor grows.
• Equity: Prioritizes high equity-scoring communities, extending benefits of an enhanced corridor to people of all ages, abilities, and resource levels.
• Corridor Aesthetics: Uses public art and green infrastructure to beautify corridor, frames the unique westward viewshed, attracting people to the transformed street.