The Regional Bicycle Transportation Network is a set of regionally significant existing and planned bicycle alignments and corridors. The RBTN was adopted by the Metropolitan Council as part of the 2040 Transportation Policy Plan on January 14, 2015.

The RBTN was completed for the entire Metropolitan Planning Area (MPA) as stipulated by the US Department of Transportation. Currently the MPA includes the 7 counties currently under the Metropolitan Council jurisdiction and extends into parts of Wright and Sherburne Counties. The boundary of the MPA is defined federal rules and is based density calculations from the US Census Bureau.The Metropolitan Council, as the Twin Cities Metropolitan Planning Organization, is required by federal law to include the entire MPA in all transportation related plans.

As stated in the 2040 TPP, the goal of the RBTN is to establish an integrated seamless network of on-street bikeways and off-road trails to most effectively improve conditions for bicycle transportation at the regional level and to encourage planning and implementation of future bikeways by cities, counties, parks agencies, and the state, in support of the network vision. The network is subdivided into two tiers for regional planning and investment prioritization.

Tier 1 Priority Regional Bicycle Transportation Corridors and Alignments.

Tier 1 corridors are shown as broad purple bands in the data layer and are scaled to a ½-mile buffer for the suburban and rural areas of the region, and to ¼-mile buffered bands within the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. These are the corridors where a more specific bikeway alignment has not yet been designated. Tier 1 corridors have been identified in the TPP as having the highest priority for regional transportation planning and investment.

Tier 1 alignments are shown as bold purple lines in the map layer and indicate where specific routes have been designated in the TPP. Tier 1 corridors and alignments are given the highest priority for transportation planning and investment in the TPP. These priority corridors and alignments are planned in locations where they can attract the most riders and where they can most effectively enhance mode choice in favor of biking, walking, and transit over driving alone. In addition, they provide the highest transportation function by connecting the most regional job and activity centers through the developed urban and suburban parts of the region.

Tier 2 Regional Bicycle Transportation Corridors and Alignments.

Tier 2 corridors are shown as broad green bands in the data layer and are scaled to a ½-mile buffer for the suburban and rural areas of the region, and to ¼-mile buffered bands within the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. These Tier 2 corridors are where a more specific bikeway alignment has not yet been designated. Tier 2 alignments are shown as bold green lines in the data layer and are where specific routes have been designated in the TPP.

Tier 2 corridors and alignments have been identified in the TPP as having the second highest priority for transportation planning and investment. These corridors and alignments provide transportation connectivity to outlying regional destinations within and beyond the urban/suburban areas and serve to connect Tier 1 corridors and alignments.

The linear features in this dataset which represent RBTN corridors are for illustrative purposes only. These linear features were used as the basis for the designation of a corridor where a RBTN alignment will be designated. Users should refer to the RBTN quarter and half mile buffers for a more accurate representation of the areas being considered for an RBTN alignment. Corridor centerlines are NOT recommended or suggested aligments.

The dataset uses primarily two fields. The first is the Aligment field. It is a binary field where 1 indicates that the linear feature represents an aligment and 0 indicated that the linear feature represents a cooridor. The second field is called Final The final field indicates which linear features are Tier 1 (PRBTC) or Tier 2 (Network) and whether they are aligments (with aligments) or cooridors (- no alignments).