“Anybody there?” the neighborhood council president yells as a precaution, before walking into a debris-strewn tunnel just off Interstate 35E on the north edge of St. Paul.

There are piles of blankets and discarded flannels: evidence of an old homeless encampment, to go along with the tunnel’s graffiti-laden walls.

Those homeless people are the only ones getting any use out of what some have now dubbed “the tunnel to nowhere,” originally built to accommodate a new route for the iconic Gateway State Trail, the most famous bike trail in the east metro.

There aren’t any homeless there on that Tuesday afternoon — and no bikers, either.

Though it was built six years ago, the tunnel — which runs under Maryland Avenue, part of the Department of Transportation’s revamping of the avenue’s bridge over I-35E — now dead-ends into a ditch. Which is leaving local officials wondering: what’s the holdup?

“This is a trail you’re supposed to be able to bike down with your 6-year-old kid. You can’t do that. This is the entryway into St. Paul,” says Rich Holst, the North End’s district council president. “And it’s an equality issue: 20 percent of households in the North End don’t have cars.”

COUNCILWOMAN: ENOUGH ALREADY

Yes, there’s a current trail route, which winds between a junkyard and the cluttered back-end of a K-Mart parking lot. The trail’s now closed for sewer work — and as for the lights that run along it, “Those have been off for years,” Holst notes.

Both Holst and his representative on the city council, Amy Brendmoen, say they’ve spent more than enough time waiting for the new Gateway.

“I’m personally appalled that the path is tended and treasured until it comes to the most economically challenged neighborhood in St. Paul and then it simply stops,” Brendmoen said in an email.

While it’s arguable whether the North End is the most economically challenged in the city, it’s more challenged than most on a variety of metrics. The Maryland Avenue bridge project was completed in 2012.

STATE’S RESPONSIBILITY

“It’s a state trail — the responsibility is certainly ours,” acknowledged Kent Skaar, senior project manager for facility development for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ parks and trails division. “It’s now two or three on the list.”

“The list” is the tally of funding priorities the DNR takes to the Legislature. For the last two bienniums, the St. Paul portion of the Gateway Trail hasn’t made the cut when it comes to capital bonding projects.

Still topping the trail on the list is the Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail, which runs 39 miles from Mankato to Faribault. Thirteen miles of that trail need reworking — though half of it could possibly be accomplished through existing funding, Skaar said.

Also above the tunnel project is another portion of the Gateway just to the north — and actually within the North End neighborhood, as well: a portion of trail, including a smaller bridge, immediately east of I-35E.

“That first half-mile to mile is pretty well shot. The path is shot and (Westminster Street) bridge is crumbling,” Skaar said.

HOPING FOR HELP FROM LEGISLATURE

Ethan Osten, the head of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition who is also a board member of the North End district council, said of the northern portion, “The trail isn’t in great shape, but I guess I can’t say I ever noticed it was in crisis.”

He also pointed out that even the old route on the St. Paul side is currently closed, for sewer work, “and the detour is worthless.” It forces bikers to take Maryland, which “has a very narrow sidewalk, nothing accessible.”

The county maintains a bike path on the other side of I-35E, along the highway’s retaining wall, but “there are problems with garbage dumping. … For a couple months last year there was a mattress in the middle of it, broken glass everywhere. It doesn’t feel like a maintained trail right now,” Osten added.

Skaar said he’s hopeful there will be enough funding for the North End portion of the Gateway this legislative session — and noted it would be included with the funding level set in the governor’s budget recommendation.

ROADS NOT TRAVELED

Two rerouting options have been proposed by North End residents, and acknowledged by DNR officials. Both link with the tunnel, and cost about the same: between $600,000 and $700,000, with some minor street work.

A wildcard in the project is a big North End food distributor, Asian Foods. One path runs along its L’Orient Street facility’s front side, and the other along its back, hugging the highway.

The path along the back would avoid all the company’s truck traffic — and allow them to possibly acquire a slice of land to the north of them for expansion, in exchange for the trail running through the back of their property and taking a piece of their parking lot.

Holst was supportive of that plan as well; his council’s transportation committee noted the company had discussed providing lighting and security cameras along its portion of the trail.

An Asian Foods executive referred calls to Houston-based Sysco Foods, which owns them. A corporate spokeswoman released a statement saying they were involved in the trail’s planning process and “open to continued discussions.”

The Gateway State Trail runs 18 miles from Pine Point County Park, just north of Stillwater, to the state Capitol complex.