Urban Hiking & Biking in Ohio
by Tony Chavira
(Go alternative transportation, go! Super cool image by Space Cowboy's Flickr)
The city of Chagrin Falls, OH has an awesome idea to promote alternative transportation: to develop hiking and biking routes throughout the city, integrated into the urban and suburban landscape. I think that this is a fantastic idea, especially when you consider that so many of the abandoned neighborhoods across the country are suburban and well-suited for an interconnected hiking and biking trail system (heads up, the bold emphases are mine):
One high priority recommendation in the draft plan is an all-purpose trail along Bell Street from the Chagrin Falls line to Chillicothe Road, at an estimated total cost of about $6,925,500.
Another recommendation in the draft plan is an all-purpose trail along the entire length of Chagrin River Road at an estimated cost of about $10,071,000.
Hils said the cost estimates are only preliminary. The final report will contain more refined estimates.
Participating entities have not received funding for these recommendations, but could potentially use the information from the study to apply for grants and other funding in the future.
Greg Hopkins of the Chagrin Falls ad hoc hiking and biking committee said some residents were concerned about the recommendation to create bike lanes along Miles Road from Chagrin River Road to Chagrin Falls.
“There were some concerns over the taking of property for this project,” he said. “None of the proposals involve any property taking. They would use existing right of ways.”
The money isn't really the issue if you want to make walkability something people can focus their efforts on in a city space. If the city has money, it should invest it back into the community.
But the idea that city residents are opposed to large-scale beautification efforts because of rhetorical property-taking is silly to me. The city has pretty much zero rights if they plan to "dominate your property," but you'd think that residents in a community wouldn't be so greedy that they'd completely shun an amazing public project that's meant for the public good because it may graze th edge of their property a bit. The inability for the government to take your property on a whim is legally tried-and-true, I'm not even sure how stuff like that enters people's minds. More to the point, I'm surprised that the same residents in Chagrin Falls aren't elated with this news! If I had a small home that was directly connected to a cool urban or suburban walkway, that would actually make me want to go outside and walk around more, get to know my neighbors and local police officers, or just go for casual nature hikes on the weekend. Slap a few shops along that trail and you've got yourself a nice evening walk to and from the store or something.
I know that a lot of people out there are fearful of changes to their neighborhoods... that's why NIMBY's exist. But if there's a way to integrate your home into these types of trail systems, it might just be beneficial to you and your neighborhood. Imagine living close enough to a trolley stop or a walkable corridor like Old Town Pasadena that you could just stroll down the road and jump right on. Now that's the life, my friends.
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