There was actually a nearly perfect abduction spot on the bike path where it made a relatively slight curve around the corner of Meyers Lake. The path was separated at that point from the lake by an eight foot chainlink fence (the same fence the girls' bikes were found leaning on). On the opposite side of the curve, there was a little patch of woods; my eyeball estimate is that it was no more than 2 acres. In that little patch of woods was a gravel dead end road that was once called Maiden Lane. Maiden Lane joined the street system at about the bend where S Evans Rd turns into Arbutus Ave. Maiden Lane has a slight curve so that a vehicle driven down to the end of the gravel cannot be seen in summer from S Evans/Arbutus.
The bike path at that point had a blind curve due to a slight rise in the path and overgrowth of the Iowa jungle. There were tall weeds and vines growing up the chainlink which helped obscure the view in the summer.
In the summer, at that one single spot on the bike path around Meyer's Lake, there was no way for someone to see that particular spot from the parking lots, etc, on the other side of the lake.
A former WS poster, Ollipop, noted that in the summer, traffic on the bike path was about 6 to 7 groups of people per hour. That's around 10 minutes apart on average, meaning that there were plenty of times for someone who knew that particular area to lie in wait and select potential victims without other witnesses to see what was happening. He said that even before the girls were abducted, it was a creepy feeling spot. My theory is that most normal people still have atavistic instincts from the time when we were as likely to be the prey as we were to be the predator and spots like that give us the creeps because our inner alarm system is on the alert for sabre-toothed tigers.
I looked at Google Maps and chose what I thought was the most direct route. Then I asked Google Maps to suggest a route and one of the three offered was the one I had already picked, so I think the following route is fairly obvious.
My guess would be Maiden Lane to S Evans Rd to Gilbert Dr. Stay on Gilbert (crossing into the suburb of Elk Run Heights) until the junction with Hwy 281. Stay on Hwy 281 for about 20 miles and turn on N Canfield Rd. Turn on Tucson Ave. Turn on 270th St and you're there. It is the shortest, most direct route; there are several other possible routes but none of them are as direct.
There was construction going on I380/70/20 (it's all the same stretch of road with different names). All the traffic was on far side of the central divider from Meyers Lake and the construction was on the side that was closer to Meyers Lake.
I have no doubt the construction workers were questioned pretty early on, if for no other reason than that road fixing is a travelling job and LE would want to get to those workers before they moved on. Nothing has been reported in the media about the construction workers, so I'm guessing they didn't see anything.
Since that happened, I got in touch with an old friend who had a summer job as a flagger (the person who regulates traffic if needed). They wouldn't have needed flaggers for that particular day since all the traffic was shunted to the other side of the road and there was no lane sharing but his comments were enlightening anyway. He said he'd be surprised if anyone working the construction that day saw a thing because it is a highly dangerous job, particularly for the workers on foot. It involves heavy machinery with limited visibility plus light vehicles ferrying people up and down the construction area because the area tends to spread out. The heavy vehicles are usually (not always) slow but the light vehicles tend to go faster, you can definitely feel the wind whip when they pass you. Everyone is in a hurry, from the head of the company to the foremen and down because there's usually penalties in the contracts for missing the various deadlines.
Construction in general is the 4th most dangerous job in the US (more dangerous than the military as a private first class, police or fire fighting), so it's not the job for those who like to take some time to smell the roses. He figured that workers don't have much awareness of anything going on more than about 10 feet outside of the construction zone and most of their concentration is focused on where they are in relationship to all the construction machines. He said it's like a dance where you do it on the hottest days of the year, wearing boots and a hard hat, often carrying equipment, in triple time and missing a step can mean a catastrophic injury if you are lucky.
After talking to him, I was pretty convinced that the construction workers probably had nothing to report.
