I haven’t been very good with writing about my bike adventures
lately. The entire month of May ended up
being dedicated to one, epic ride up 5th Street. Since that late April day I biked through
West Philadelphia with Zack, up to Hunting Park Ave, Germantown and the Awbury
Arboretum and had a lovely ride with my dad in Columbus. I’m not going to be able to write about all
those in the next week and I feel like having more adventures soon so I might
skip out on some of them. However, one that I don’t want to skip out on is my
Columbus ride. I enjoy writing (and
thinking) about my hometown it is where I began my interest in city planning
and it’s awesome to watch new projects spring. Also fitting to this blog, Columbus
has made a lot of progress in the past 5 years planning and implementing a regional
bicycle network. Most of the stride that the city has made is constructing
off-road, multi-purpose trails. The city
adopted the Bicentennial
Bikeway Master Plan in 2008 in order to connect many of the park systems
and existing trails by the city’s bicentennial in 2012. My dad and I biked approximately 11 miles of
the Olentangy (pronounced Ol-en-tan-g (like the letter “g”) River/Scioto
(pronounced Sigh-oh-ta) River trails, two of the oldest trails in the city. Because I have no shapefiles for Columbus you’re
going to have to rely on the dailymile.com map below.
Miles
|
Minutes
|
Speed
|
Calories Burned
|
24.9
|
135
|
11.1
|
1,625
|
The Olentangy River trail runs roughly 14.5 miles along the Olentangy
River from above the I-270 outerbelt to the confluence of the Olentangy and
Scioto Rivers, just west of Downtown. The path and river cut through the middle
of the city and provide a pretty accurate cross section of Columbus’ development,
from urban mid 19th century residential neighborhoods to late 20th
century suburban sprawl. My dad and I started a few miles down the trail at the
architecturally insignificant Whetstone High School, just south of Henderson
Road.
The high school sets just to the north of the large 138-acre Whetstone
Park, which is one of the many parks located along the river. The park was created in the 1950s and is well
known in Central Ohio for the Park of Roses,
home to a large collection of roses and a popular spot for weddings. The park also contains several baseball diamonds,
a community center and a large pond.
Due to the weather (the first warm, sunny day in Columbus for
apparently two weeks or a month) the park, and trail, were very busy. One of the first of few things I noticed
about the Olentangy trail is the proportion of cyclist to runners. In Philly, the split is probably 40/60, where
in Columbus it is probably 80/20, so many more cyclists.
As the trail meanders out of Whetstone Park it enters Northmoor Park (I’m
not kidding there are a lot of parks along this trail) which is a long skinny
park right along the banks of the river. There is a large lawn along the riverside
of the trail and backyards of several Clintonville homes along the other side.
At the end of the Northmoor the trail empties out into the streets of Clintonville,
a large neighborhood in north central Columbus. Developed in the early 20th
century as one of the first “suburbs” of the city, the neighborhood is made up
of winding streets, craftsman bungalow houses and rows of large street trees.
The area has a few unique traits, it has remained one of the most desirable
neighborhoods in Columbus since its beginnings almost a hundred years ago, and
it is host to one of the largest concentrations of lesbians in the entire country.
It’s like the Mt. Airy of Columbus.
Like I said, there are tons of Craftsman-style bungalows, including
these which I’d buy in a heartbeat.
Unlike Philadelphia, I could probably afford it. Although Clintonville
is a desirable neighborhood in a Columbus, many of the smaller homes (under
2,000 sq. ft.) in Clintonville sell between $150k and $200k. Like this one,
for $165,000.
After entering the streets of Clintonville cyclists have to wind
through a small portion of the neighborhood to return to the trail. As part of
the Bicentennial Bikeway Plan, the city proposed and completed a Bicycle Boulevard for
the half-mile stretch. I was super impressed;
the boulevard is well used, has very clear signage and even includes bike boxes
at the intersection of North Broadway (a large arterial through the city).
After biking through a field that is known as Clinton Como Park and
crossing the river we ended up near the Schiermeier
Olentangy River Wetland Research Park administered by OSU as a teaching and
research wetland. The wetland is a 52
acre campus that began in the early 1990s and has expanded to one of the world’s
foremost (and largest manmade) wetland research parks, or so is the claim on
the OSU’s website. The wetland consists of three parts: a 2.5 acre marshland
where water is consistently pumped in from the river; a 7 acre oxbow lake,
which are typically found near bends in rivers; and a 12 acre bottomland forest
filled with native Ohio vegetation. My dad
and I discovered and climbed a lookout near the administrative/classroom building
allowing us to overlook the entire complex.
Nearing OSU’s main campus is another park, Tuttle Park, consisting of
very large field, a recreation center and baseball diamonds. When I first transferred to OSU I used to
live in a building that overlooked the park. However not being the city boy I
am now I was dissuaded from visiting the park by stories of muggings that happen
late at night along the trail. Ironically, this was my first time in the park. The
park also provides an awesome foreground for the OSU “skyline” (pictured are
dorms along Lane Avenue, a new administrative building/parking garage and the
Fisher Business School).
The path runs through the park and ends up under the relatively new
Lane Avenue Bridge, which became one of the most iconic landmarks on campus after
its completion in 2003. The design is
very similar to the Zakim Bridge connecting downtown Boston to Bunker Hill, and
coincidently both were completed the same year.
After running under Lane Ave the trail cuts along the west portion of
main campus. This portion of campus is home to The Shoe (OSU’s Stadium), St.
John’s Arena, Morrill and Lincoln Towers (dorms and administrative offices) as
well as the lesser of the two student unions on campus, Drake Union. The trail
that runs along the backside of Drake Union opened within days of our ride. The
trail also looked as if it had recently emerged from the flooded Olentangy.
After zipping past the acres of parking lots awaiting development by
the OSU Hospital/medical school, we ended up near one of the more interesting
civil engineering projects in Columbus. In the 1960s when building highways was
en vogue Columbus jumped on the trend.
Not only did the city want one north-south highway, they dreamed of two
within no more than 2 miles of one another.
It was decided by the powers that be State Route 315 (which historically
runs along the Olentangy River) would be the best choice. As with any freeway
project cutting through an existing city issues exist about where to put it and
when trying to decide a route between OSU’s Campus and downtown it was decided (by
those powers) that roughly a half mile bridge should be constructed over the
river, an existing bridge, and a dam. Since its construction the free has been
widened several times, causing 315 to be infamously known in the Columbus
region for its ongoing construction. In fact, the entire thing is currently
being repaved with an anticipated completion date of Fall 2011.
For roughly 1.5 miles we biked along a very wide path directly next to
OH-315 and a couple dozen feet above the river. Along this stretch, the trail
weaves under several on and off ramps until intersecting with one of the main thoroughfares
leading into downtown, Spring Street.
Just on the other side of Spring Street is the confluence of the two aforementioned
rivers. Set just about a mile west of downtown
Columbus the confluence provides one of the most dramatic views of the city, so
dramatic that the area contains a large restaurant and conference center.
Since that is the end of the Olentangy River trail I’m going to end
this post here and hold off to blog about the path we took along the Scioto
River and through downtown another time. There is too much for me to focus on
right now to make it a worthwhile read.
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