Events Calendar
In This Section
Most Read Stories
Akron police investigate teen mob attack on family
Man found hanging at playground in Stow
Relatives doubt story of suicide
FBI asked to investigate attack on white family near Firestone Park
Robbery suspect's body left at Akron hospital
Man shot in back near Akron park
Blogs:
Pets:
Zeke, the basketball playing dog
The Heldenfiles:
Friday Notebook
Patrick McManamon:
For your Saturday entertainment …
Akron Zips:
Six new scholarship offers
Browns Bulletin:
Quick thought on Browns rookies
Tribe Matters:
Tribe roster on hold?
Cleveland Browns:
Stallworth test showed marijuana
Kent State Sports:
Men's Basketball Scheduling update
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Andy’s Signed According to ESPN
All Da King's Men:
Baby Got Barack !
Blog of Mass Destruction:
The Rogue Bush White House
Akron Law Café:
New Wiretapping Revelations from Inspector General
Varsity Letters:
Report: Ontko selects Wisconsin
See Jane Style:
Oh Baby!
Car Chase:
Where do We Go from Here?
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Closings….Not the Good Kind!
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Margy inquires-when is a Taste of Hudson?
Sound Check:
LeVert II live performance Saturday night — "Dedication" album due July 13,
HRLite House:
DDI One of Best Places to Work
Akron Gamer:
Video game sales drop in May
Trek from S. Lincoln down to Dix Stadium
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Friday, Oct 05, 2007
KENT: It's part trail. It's part super-wide sidewalk. And it's packed with topography.
Welcome to the Portage Hike and Bike Trail at Kent State University.
Saturday, the university and its trail-building partners will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the trail, which stretches nearly three miles from near South Lincoln Street to Dix Stadium off East Summit Street.
The ceremony will be at 10:30 a.m. at Seiberling Drive just north of the WKSU Broadcast Center. The event will include a fun walk at 11:30 a.m. for students and the community.
The new trail is winning rave reviews.
''I absolutely love it,'' said Emilie Noland, 19, of Marysville, a sophomore majoring in early childhood education. It's a chance to walk in nature and to get away from campus, she said. She said she walks the new path once a week.
Added Emily Johnson, 19, of Richmond, a freshman in middle childhood education: ''It's very pretty.''
Kent State invested just under $1 million on the sidewalk-trail and received $540,000 more in federal and state grants, said university spokesmen Tom Euclide and Tom Clapper.
Getting the trail built is ''a significant accomplishment . . . and a big step,'' Clapper said.
The campus trail section is part of a still-growing Portage County effort to replicate the popular Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail in Summit, Stark, Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas counties, he said.
''It's a great new milestone in the development of the Portage Hike and Bike Trail . . . and an example (that) our partnerships are working well as we coordinate trail planning and grant seeking,'' said Christine Craycroft, executive director of the Portage Park District.
The northwest terminus of the new trail is near South Lincoln Street and Hilltop Drive between Rockwell and Franklin halls on Kent State's front campus.
The red and white sidewalk goes uphill, passes Kent Hall and then there's another hill. The sidewalk grows to 40 feet wide at the Esplanade between Olson and Bowman halls.
The sidewalk goes past the Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center and into Risman Plaza between the Student Center and Library. The sidewalk narrows at Cunningham and Henderson halls. The route winds past a track and a soccer field.
Near Loop and Rhodes roads, behind the university's Child Development Center, the sidewalk becomes a paved asphalt trail.
It is a pretty trail through a pine plantation and wooded groves, tucked behind parking lots and generally running from northwest to southeast along East Summit Street.
It includes two brown-painted boardwalks next to a wetland with ducks, geese and wading birds. There is a small bridge over a creek. There is also a large bridge over state Route 261.
The trail also connects with Franklin Township's bike lanes off Horning Road.
The 12-foot-wide trail ends at the northwest corner of the parking lot at the football stadium.
The best advice on the latter half of the trail is to look for the brown wooden posts. Farther north, follow the fancy red and white sidewalks.
There are a few hills but none are killers.
Plans call for a future trail connection from the Kent State stadium to the county-run Towner's Woods Park in Franklin Township.
There, trail users will be able to connect with an already-complete section of the Portage Hike and Bike Trail. A five-mile trail segment runs from Lake Rockwell Road near Brady Lake to Chestnut Hills Park in Ravenna, Craycroft said.
Work likely will begin this fall on extending the trail west from Lake Rockwell Road to Crane Avenue in Kent.
There are also plans to extend the trail from Peck Road two miles to the east to Peck Road in Ravenna Township and to run the trail 1.5 miles along the Cuyahoga River to Middlebury Road in southwest Kent.
The trail is a key element in the Portage Park District's countywide parks, trails and greenways plan.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
KENT: It's part trail. It's part super-wide sidewalk. And it's packed with topography.
Get the full article here.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
