Luce Line Trail completed

Construction is now substantially complete on the final section of the Luce Line bike trail, which runs through Theodore Wirth Park. Located west and south of the Par 3 golf course and north of the railroad tracks, the project has been funded and built by Three Rivers Park District in cooperation with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

Owned and operated by Three Rivers Park District, the Luce Line regional trail is a seasonal trail that now extends approximately nine miles from Theodore Wirth Parkway to Vicksburg Lane in Plymouth. The Wirth section of the trail is approximately three-fourths of a mile long, running east from Ottawa Avenue in Golden Valley through the park to Theodore Wirth Parkway Trail, providing access to Minneapolis’ system of trails.

The Luce Line State Recreation Trail, a crushed limestone trail operated by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, extends an additional 63 miles west of Vicksburg Lane to the city of Cosmos in west-central Minnesota. 

Alignments for the trail were selected to minimize tree loss, especially of large established trees. An existing maintenance road was utilized for the eastern third of the new trail, which now doubles as a low-volume maintenance road; the middle third abuts the existing cross country ski trail corridor.

The western third of the Wirth portion of the new trail includes a 240-foot boardwalk over a ravine, and a retaining wall. Three Rivers worked with MPRB forestry staff to minimize construction impacts and will restore all surrounding terrain affected by the trail construction. Three Rivers owns and maintains the 8.8-mile trail, including the segment in Wirth Park.

In general, the trail width consists of 10 feet of paving with three-foot grassy shoulders on each side. In the maintenance corridor, the pavement will be 12 feet wide to accommodate the occasional maintenance vehicle. In keeping with Three Rivers’ current practice and to keep the ski trails intact, the trail will not be plowed in winter.  

The alignment for the Luce Line Trail through Wirth Park was first approved by the MPRB in 1998. An updated alignment, redesigned to accommodate the new Wirth winter recreation area master plan, was approved in 2004. Three Rivers held several public information meetings throughout the course of the project planning, the most recent in January 2008.

Most of the Luce Line Trail lies along an abandoned railroad bed. The Union Pacific Railroad, however, still operates trains on the track east of Vicksburg Lane. Sections of the regional trail built by Three Rivers east of Vicksburg Lane parallels the railroad tracks; other sections have new alignments, which is the case for the Wirth section of trail. Over the last several years, Three Rivers has worked with the City of Golden Valley and the MPRB to forge agreements to accommodate the trail.  

The Luce Line Trail is named after Colonel William Luce and his son E. D. Luce, who founded the Electric Short Line Railroad Company in 1908; they planned to build a railroad from Minneapolis to Brookings, SD. The line, however, spanned only 115 miles to the City of Gluek, MN, which it reached in 1927. The Luces sold the line in 1927, after which it changed hands a number of times. Due to the ascendancy of the automobile and other alternative modes of transportation, the demand for rail service diminished, and the line west of Vicksburg Lane was officially abandoned in 1970 by the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company. Union Pacific currently operates trains to service customers in the west metro area.