SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — The near $120 million Gordon Viaduct project is still years away from completion, but Sioux City is already planning for an added bike and walking trail to give commuters more space to move. In August 2022, the Sioux City Planning and Zoning Committee began a bike facility study.

“Which kind of set out a city-wide plan for when we’re doing the street reconstruction project or any major street redesign, how are we going to address bicycle and pedestrian traffic on that,” Planning and Zoning Senior Planner Chris Madsen said.

On March 6, Sioux City’s City Council voted 4-0 adding an amendment to that study for a bike and walking trail to the Gordon Drive Viaduct project.

“The DOT, their typical design is two five-foot sidewalks, so with this plan, what we’re requesting is a single trail preferably on the south,” Madsen said.

“We want safety to be a priority for our pedestrians and our bicyclists, and so we’ve opted for the 15-foot-wide trail on the south side of the Gordon viaduct,” Mayor Pro Tem Dan Moore said.

Moore also said the new bike study amendment further connects Sioux City’s trails.

“The other advantage of having it on the south side is that it will connect to the Cunningham Drive trails and then in turn will connect with our riverfront trails and our Chautauqua trails as well,” Moore said.

Revamping the biking and walking trail is also key for people who regularly use the viaduct without an automobile.

“It’s not much of an accommodation today, but it is well used. That is the only pedestrian crossing across the Hooven Valley up and down that entire length,” DOT Planner Dakin Schultz said.

But the city and the DOT understand how early in the design phase the viaduct and trail are. There is still no official completion date and the cost of an added trail is yet to be determined.