The Kenilworth Trail is a paved bicycle trail in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It runs nearly 1.5 miles (2.4 km) and acts as a connector between the Cedar Lake Trail in the north and the Midtown Greenway in the south.[1] Like the Cedar Lake Trail, most of the route is composed of a triple-divided cycleway/pedway with a pair of one-way paths for bicycles and another path for pedestrians. On some maps, a southern segment of the Kenilworth Trail is called the Burnham Trail.
At its northern end, it is easy for westbound Cedar Lake Trail users to accidentally get on the Kenilworth Trail, since continuing on the Cedar Lake trail requires taking a right turn at a "T" intersection just south of Interstate 394. Cyclists who miss the turn find themselves on the Kenilworth instead. In the south, the Kenilworth Trail entrance is only 0.1 miles (160 m) east of where the Midtown Greenway ends and the Southwest LRT Trail (now known as the Cedar Lake LRT Regional Trail) begins.[2] The trail only crosses two roads at grade level, the quiet West 21st Street and the busy Cedar Lake Parkway.
As of 2010, the trail runs adjacent to a freight railway line that was originally part of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway, but is now owned by the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority and operated by the Twin Cities and Western Railroad.[3] The freight rail line will likely be removed as work progresses on the planned Southwest Corridor light rail line because some spots along the corridor are too tight to have a freight line, a double-tracked light rail line, and also the bike trail.[4] The option of widening the corridor was examined in 2009, but that would have cost up to $120 million because of land acquisitions. A new $48 million interchange between the Twin Cities and Western Railroad and the old Dan Patch Line in St. Louis Park (Canadian Pacific Railway's MN&S Subdivision) is planned to be built instead.[5]