Lake Metroparks to merge links to Geauga Park District trails

This section of the Maple Highlands Trail North was completed in summer 2003. It travels parallel to Route 44 and extends south 4.2 miles from Colburn Road to the Chardon city limits.

CONCORD TOWNSHIP, Ohio--Lake Metroparks and Geauga Park District officials believe that being good neighbors means building bridges - or at least a common hiking trail, as reported by News-Herald's Jeffrey L. Frischkorn.

Neither agency anticipates sinking a golden spike into the ground to commemorate linking their respective hiking trails. But they do expect good use of the merged pathway.

Lake Metroparks is supervising a $225,645, one-half-mile project for its Greenway Corridor in Lake County.

The path runs along the same former abandoned Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line now overlaid by Lake Metroparks' 4.4-mile Greenway trail.

It begins at Colburn Road and runs north to Girdled Road, both in Concord Township.

The trail will consist of a 10-foot-wide asphalt base with grass berm, melding closely to the existing trail as built by each park agency.

However, the Colburn Road site also is the terminus of Geauga Park District's 4-mile Maple Highlands Trail, which ends in Chardon.

Once completed, this latest leg of the trail will weld Lake Metroparks' trail with that of the Geauga Park District.

This will allow for a continuous hiking/bicycle path from near downtown Painesville to near downtown Chardon.

"It is a good project, and it represents the southern link to our rails-to-trails project that began in 1988," said Chuck Kenzig, Lake Metroparks' landscape architect.

The parks system's current segment of asphalt-paved trail runs from Ravenna Road in Concord Township north to Jackson Street in Painesville city.

"We've been working with the Ohio Department of Transportation on the current project, just as we did with the first phase," Kenzig said.

"While we prepared the plans and specifications, ODOT bid the project."

For Geauga Park District, the link represents the culmination of a dialogue concerning joining the respective agency forces and plans.

Paige Hosier, the Geauga Park District marketing director, said bicyclists in particular will relish the two trails' merger.

"Joining the trails will make for a much more satisfying ride," Hosier said.

Tom Curtin, the Geauga Park District's executive director, said his agency and Lake Metroparks have been "working together for the common good of everyone."

"It's a wonderful opportunity for people to have the ability to explore both counties," Curtin said.

The Geauga Park District also is undertaking work on an additional 8.3-mile trail section, Curtin and Hosier said.

Once completed, this trail will run from Chardon to the agency's Headwaters Park in Claridon and Huntsburg townships.

Lake Metroparks is mulling one final stretch of trail as well.

As envisioned, this section will stretch from the Greenway trail's present Jackson Street terminus north into Fairport Harbor.

"We're working with the local municipalities to facilitate that work, but there is no rail corridor, so we'll have to use some city streets. It's still all in the planning stage," Kenzig said.

The project is funded through the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, which is serving as the conduit for federal funds.

The federal dollars originate from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

"Without these funds, we would not have been able to have built this project," Kenzig said.

Construction is scheduled for completion in late September, contingent on weather.