Busy, and exciting, times are just ahead for the Towpath Trail Partnership Committee, the group building out the northernmost five miles of the all-purpose trail which, one day, will connect Akron, Peninsula and downtown Cleveland.

After more than a year, Ohio Canal Corridor has figured out how to avoid the heavy metal barricades in the industrial Flats for Stage 1 of the Towpath Trail. The preferred route of this 1-mile section will wend from Harvard Road over the river and (practically) through the train tracks before rising 40 feet to meet the new trail at Steelyard Commons. The group unveils this engineering marvel at a June 17 public meeting.

"Besides the obvious environmental concerns, there are complicated engineering challenges led by a spiderweb of rail lines which must be crossed by going around, under or above," Ohio Canal Corridor (OCC) writes in its spring ’08 newsletter.

And, after missing its January deadline, the committee looks to hire a design consultant in April who will do it all over again—producing a preferred trail alignment for Stage 3, the 1-mile segment from Steelyard to Literary Avenue in Tremont. This time, they decided by extending the major trailhead a little further than below I-490 (at the intersection of W. 3rd and Quigley Avenue) to a small trailhead at Literary, a stage and an entire year will be shaved from the project.

In about four years, we should see the fruits of their labor: Stage 1 will bring the total to two in the final five miles of Towpath from Harvard to Canal Basin Park, a spot just below the Detroit-Superior Bridge in the Flats. In 2006, OCC director Tim Donovan estimated the five miles of trail will cost $48 million—mostly from federal and state coffers and some from the Steelyard tax abatement. We also get 40 acres of linear green space as part of the trail corridor. Cuyahoga County Planning Commission hopes to anchor its greening the valley initiatives—remediated land, habitat restoration, wetlands, green bulkheads, stormwater management and more—around the Towpath Trail project.

Speaking of Canal Basin Park, OCC and the city of Cleveland secured the first piece in the puzzle of the proposed urban park that will serve as gateway to the Towpath. John and Mary Coyne were the only parking lot operators so far to take the city up on the offer to sell their surface lot located next to the Flat Iron Café. The city will use part of its $1.3 million federal grant and $434,200 from the Clean Ohio Fund for the purchase of the 1.4 acres.

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