Twin Cities residents often head to the St. Croix River or the Boundary Waters when planning a paddle excursion — but this summer the National Park Service is encouraging people to look closer to home.

The agency is expanding its Mississippi River Paddle Share program, which debuted briefly in Minneapolis last summer and is the first kayak rental of its kind in a U.S. national park. The park service is opening a route in St. Paul and has plans for even more Twin Cities sites.

“People have generally seen the Mississippi River as a challenge and an obstacle. It’s not very accessible,” said Susan Overson, a National Park Service landscape architect and park planner. But the kayak rental program is altering that perception, she said.

“It’s just going to change the whole dynamic of the way people look at recreation on the Mississippi River,” Overson said.

In St. Paul, Paddle Share is just one of many efforts to connect people with the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a national park that cuts through the city.

“The more stuff they have on the river, the better,” downtown St. Paul resident Hugo Vial said Friday as he walked his dog by the Mississippi.

The Red River Kitchen that opened last year has drawn more people to the riverbank, he said. And Rick Miller, who works downtown, said the kayak program would complement the city’s plan to build a River Balcony — a project that received broad community support at a Planning Commission hearing Friday.

While the balcony is just a plan and lacks funding, the kayak program is ready to cast off in mid-June thanks to about $100,000 from the National Park Service and local partners, Overson said.

Paddlers can start renting kayaks in Minneapolis even sooner. Paddle Share routes there open June 2 — a nearly 4-mile journey from North Mississippi Regional Park to Boom Island Park and an almost 2-mile stretch from Lowry Avenue Bridge to Boom Island Park.

The St. Paul route is a bit longer. People will take off from Hidden Falls Regional Park and head more than 6 miles downriver to Harriet Island Regional Park.

All three options will have Nice Ride bicycle rental stations at the landing points, so people can bike back to where they started.

A fourth Paddle Share location is in the works to the north, from the Coon Rapids Dam to Boom Island. That section could open as soon as mid-July, Overson said, and Dakota County is interested in opening rental stations south of St. Paul in 2019.

The new Twin Cities locations are not the only changes this year, said Katie Nyberg, executive director of the Mississippi Park Connection, one of the partners working with the National Park Service. They will also start offering evening hours and tandem kayaks so people under 18 can ride with an adult, she said. A three-hour rental costs $25 for a single-person kayak and $40 for a tandem.

“People think they have to go Up North or to the BWCA to have a quality outdoor experience,” Nyberg said, while the Mississippi River is just miles away. “Ideally, the river becomes more special and more relevant and more important to everybody.”