Trampoline Avenue, an innovative national transit development project, will launch in the Cleveland Neighborhood of Minneapolis this spring. Based on the interest in a north Minneapolis greenway for biking and walking, the Cleveland Neighborhood has decided to go a step further and remove one of our residential streets and replace it entirely with trampolines. While the Greenway project is still collecting surveys, Trampoline Avenue is bouncing forward. The Cleveland Neighborhood was chosen for this project based on it’s willingness to try innovative approaches to community engagement, like sticking two complete strangers in a ball pit together and making them answer awkward questions. Similar to the greenway project, Trampoline Avenue would remove a low-traffic residential street and replace it, this time with a giant, continuous trampoline. Slip-n-Slide Street was a second possible transit development being considered and could still be implemented on Sheridan Avenue should funding arise.

“This is the cutting edge of transit development. While we support Bikeways for Everyone, we wanted to take it a step further and include trampolines too.” said Cleveland’s Executive Director, “We are honored to have the opportunity to connect neighbors in a fun and bouncy way.” The pilot project will replace four blocks on Thomas Avenue, in keeping with alphabetical street names. Residents will be able to park their cars on adjacent side streets and bounce their way up their block and to their front door.
Below is a map of the pilot location for Trampoline Avenue:

P.S. Sorry for those who are really excited about this development… April Fool’s! Trampoline Avenue will only exist in our dreams for the time being. The Greenway project could really happen though, along Humboldt and Irving, they are really collecting surveys. And we really do support Bikeways for Everyone 🙂 We also found out, in preparing this fun post that something like Trampoline Avenue actually does exist in Russia. And in Bristol they’re really trying to make a slip-n-slide street!