Rode the trail Strathcona County and Fort Sask built along the river today. The Riverside Nature Trail. I absolutely loved it. to be honest, i had read a bit about it (partially thanks to this thread) and didn't think much of it; it sounded like something rather minor. I really enjoyed the trip, and wound up riding all the way to Northern (Downtown) Fort Sask. the train network on this side of the river has a lot of potential, and Fort Sask has an absolutely spectacular network, particularly given its size.
I didn't really plan the excursion today, so I went around Quarry ridge, across the river via the Henday, then by Yellowhead Agregates to Aurum Road, all the way to the trailhead (an odd example of the City's mandatory road design standards, I think. Elm boulevards, sidewalk on one side, SUP on the other, plowing past gravel lots and industrial facilities. nice to be on, for sure, but odd given the utilitarian surroundings) and then took the trail to Fort Sask. On the way back, I attempted to use Aurum to cross the Henday, then use frontage roads to get to Strathcona Science Park. the Park has good connections to Rundle, and is in turn easy to access for East/Central Edmonton. This did not work, and resulted in a lot of backtracking. I checked google, and if you follow the Riverside Nature Trail, it follows/turns into 232, which turns into Sherwood Drive, which eventually intersects with Petroleum Way. Petroleum Way gets you from the middle of Sherwood Park all the way under the Henday and to the Park. the Bike infrastructure along 232 is not continuous to allow for that. In short, the while the trail itself is nice, accessing it is complex, and you either go through the middle of Sherwood Park next to major roads, or go through quieter industrial areas to get to it. This new bridge will make all of that circuitous routing unnecessary.
I wasn't quite sure what this bridge was supposed to connect; but after seeing the trails on that side of the river, and the potential for better connections, I am very excited to see this built out. riding between Fort Sask and Clareview LRT Station is decently viable, and this crossing would cut out all the unpleasant Strathcona County industrial area segments, and make the distance more achievable for a most riders.
Edit: very fried mentally. this post does not make the point i was aiming for. long story (see above) short, based off today, biking from Clareview LRT to Fort Sask, via this VERY LOVELY trail is about 35-40km (based off Strava from today and google maps, which reads neither the Riverside Trail nor the Henday Crossing), but with the new bridge, going from Clareview to Fort Sask via quarry ridge (guesstimated off Google and PDF maps) would be about 20 km, and involve a lot less riding near traffic.