North Mankato Trail System Map



Thank you to our Project Funding Partners for making the North Mankato Trail System kiosks possible!

• Greater Mankato Walk & Bike Advocates
• Statewide Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP)

The League of American Bicyclists have designated the cities of Mankato and North Mankato a "bronze" Bicycle Friendly Community. The Bicycle Friendly Community program revolutionizes the way communities evaluate their quality of life, sustainability and transportation networks, while benchmarking progress toward improving bicycle-friendliness.  There are 485 Bicycle Friendly Community designations across America, including the greater Mankato area.

The Bicycle Friendly Community Program provides incentives, hands-on assistance, and award recognition for communities that actively support bicycling. A Bicycle Friendly Community welcomes cyclists by providing safe accommodation for cycling and encouraging people to bike for transportation and recreation. 

Encouraging bicycling is a simple way towards improving public health. With more people bicycling, communities experience reduced traffic demands, improved air quality and greater physical fitness. In addition, Bicycle Friendly Communities are places with a high quality of life, where people want to live, work, and visit. Building such a community can translate into a more connected, physically active, and environmentally sustainable community that enjoys increased property values, business growth, increased tourism, and more transportation choices for citizens.

Bike Lanes

Your Bike is your Vehicle

Bicyclists must ride in the same direction as traffic and follow all traffic laws established for automobiles.

A bike lane marked with solid white lines indicates that the lane is for the exclusive use of cyclests.

Bike lanes have a dashed white line before the intersection to show joint use.

A right-turning car is to move into the bike lane before the intersection, first signaling the lane merge, then merging right to the curb lane, then finally making the actual turn when safe. The biker can then pass them on the left.

If a biker encounters an obstruction in a bicycle lane, the biker may merge into car traffic to go around the obstruction.

When riding next to parallel parked cars, bikers should ride in the left half of a bike lane if safe and possible. This will help keep bikers further away from opening car doors.

This marking, a sharrow, is placed in the center of a travel lane to indicate that a bicyclist may use the full lane.

Both auto and cycle drivers should always signal their planned movement.

Both drivers and bikers should operate their vehicles defensively. The single most important rule is to remain alert and be prepared for unpredictable moves or mistakes by others.

Bikers should use lights when on the roads at night.