The Bruce Vento Regional Trail is a rail trail

Rail trail

A rail trail is the conversion of a disused railway easement into a multi-use path, typically for walking, cycling and sometimes horse riding. The characteristics of former tracks—flat, long, frequently running through historical areas—are appealing for various development. The term sometimes also...

 in the cities of Vadnais Heights

Vadnais Heights, Minnesota

Vadnais Heights is a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 12,302 at the 2010 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, is land and is water. It borders the cities of Shoreview, Little Canada, White Bear...

, Gem Lake

Gem Lake, Minnesota

Gem Lake is a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 393 at the 2010 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water...

, Maplewood

Maplewood, Minnesota

As of the census of 2000, there were 34,947 people, 13,758 households, and 9,190 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,017.5 people per square mile . There were 14,004 housing units at an average density of 808.5 per square mile...

, and Saint Paul

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...

, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, USA.

The trail occupies an abandoned Burlington Northern Railroad

Burlington Northern Railroad

The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States-based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996....

 corridor and intersects with the Gateway State Trail

Gateway State Trail

The Gateway State Trail is a multi-use recreational rail trail in Minnesota, USA, running from Saint Paul to Pine Point Regional Park through urban landscapes of eastern Saint Paul in Ramsey County and rural farmland and forests in Washington County...

 in Maplewood and continues to just east of Lake Phalen

Lake Phalen

Lake Phalen is an urban lake located in Saint Paul, Minnesota and in its suburb of Maplewood. It is one of the largest lakes in Saint Paul and is the centerpiece of the Phalen Regional Park System. The lake drains into the Mississippi River after traveling through Phalen Creek...

 in Saint Paul. South of the lake, it continues along Phalen Boulevard and through Swede Hollow to its terminus near Seventh Street. Another spur off of Phalen Boulevard continues west, going over a long bridge that crosses very active railroad tracks, and terminates at Interstate 35E

Interstate 35E (Minnesota)

Interstate 35E is an Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of Minnesota, passing through downtown Saint Paul. It is one of two through routes for Interstate 35 through the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the other being Interstate 35W through Minneapolis. Thus, both ends of I-35E are...

.

The trail is approximately 7 miles (11.3 km) long from its northern end just north of Interstate 694

Interstate 694

Interstate 694 is an east–west auxiliary Interstate Highway located in the Minneapolis – Saint Paul metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The western terminus of the route is at its junction with Interstate 94 and Interstate 494 in Maple Grove...

 to the southern terminus near Seventh Street and Payne Avenue. The extension along Phalen Boulevard is 1.3 miles (2.1 km). Most of the trail was built in the late 1990s. The section along Phalen Boulevard was paved in late 2005.

The trail leads through an abandoned rail corridor and is mostly off the road. In some places it goes through residential neighborhoods. There are some views of Lake Phalen through the trees. The section in Swede Hollow

Swede Hollow

Swede Hollow was a neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was one of a large group of neighborhoods collectively known as the East Side, lying just to the east of the near-downtown Railroad Island neighborhood, and at the northwestern base of Dayton's Bluff...

 is particularly scenic where it runs through a ravine except for the presence of out-of-scale billboards. The south end of the trail features the Seventh Street Improvement Arches

Seventh Street Improvement Arches

The Seventh Street Improvement Arches are a double-arched masonry highway bridge that formerly spanned the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad tracks in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Seventh Street Improvement Arches are historically significant for its rarity and the technically demanding nature of its...

. This is a historic bridge built to carry the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad underneath Seventh Street. North beyond this are abandoned factories that belong to 3M

3M

3M Company , formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Maplewood, Minnesota, United States....

. The Phalen Boulevard extension goes through more industrial and office areas, but at the top of the bridge over Westminster Junction, there is a historical exhibit with descriptions of how the railroads developed along with the city.

The trail is named for U.S. Representative Bruce Vento

Bruce Vento

Bruce Frank Vento was an American politician, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 until his death in 2000...

.

This former Burlington Northern Railroad corridor was formerly used by the Northern Pacific Railway

Northern Pacific Railway

The Northern Pacific Railway was a railway that operated in the west along the Canadian border of the United States. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific when former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in...

 and was originally built as the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad

St. Paul and Duluth Railroad

The St. Paul and Duluth Railroad was reorganized from the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad in 1877. It was bought by the Northern Pacific in 1900...

.