The one-mile Segment One of the Towpath Trail—from Old Harvard Road to Steelyard Commons—stepped closer to reality as organizers presented their preferred alignment on June 17, 2008. The public has 30 days to weigh in before the Towpath Trail Partnership Committee finalizes the alignment and moves ahead with detailed designs.

Barriers and obstacles have raised the estimated cost of this segment from $7.9 million to $9 million, but, overall, $30 million of the $48 million to fund the final six miles of trail from Harvard Road into the Cleveland Flats have been secured, says Tim Donovan, Ohio Canal Corridor Director.

Figuring out how the trail will go over or under roads, rivers and rail lines in this area of the industrial Flats are impacting costs. While still open for debate, the committee proposes to build:

• An 8x50 foot tunnel under Harvard Avenue
• A 300-foot bike/ped bridge over the Cuyahoga River just below the Harvard-Denison Bridge.
• A bridge over the Norfolk-Southern rail line that would span from Mittal Steel’s property to Steelyard Commons.

Building a tunnel under Harvard is preferred to an on-road section of trail despite the higher cost because it achieves a project goal of keeping people close to the river, says project manager Vickie Wildeman, Director of Transportation for DLZ, the committee’s design consultants.

It’s also believed that Lock 41, one of the sandstone-block aqueducts that carried the Ohio & Erie Canal over the river (the towpath ran along side so that mules or horses could pull the barges through) is buried between Harvard and the river, and could be an historical site.

If all comes to pass, you’ll ride through a short, lighted tunnel and emerge along the river sloping gently downhill for 700 ft. until you reach a new bridge.

Tucked below the Harvard-Denison Bridge, you’ll span an oxbow in the Cuyahoga River.

Today, you’d see the former Harshaw Chemical site ahead and a thicket of trees and underbrush choking a natural riverbank. In the future, the thicket will be transformed into a wetland and healthy river area with innovative stormwater features such as a moss-covered stone terrace which captures and treats water running off the chemical site and bridge before it gets to the river.

That’s a small part of the vision to regenerate the natural river system and enhance the trail experience which partners in the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative, notably, the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission, and their design consultants, Biohabitats, also presented Tuesday.

Crossing the river, you’ll land on the West Bank and hug the river as you ride through a restored woodland area for 1400 ft. Your legs pump harder as you climb and catch a glimpse of smokestacks from the steel mills poking above the trees. As you round a bend, you see giant piles of black viscous slag boulders, a steel by-product, piled all around you. The climb is steepest here as you grind toward another bridge coming into view—this one flies you over a gulch where you’ll catch a glimpse of the train tracks below before landing safely in the comforting retail embrace of Steelyard Commons. Your journey for Segment One of the Towpath has come to a heart-racing completion.

For a virtual tour of some of the previously mention sections of the Flats, go here.