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TRAIL MENU The trails are the result of a lot of hardwork by a lot of different folks. Many of these agencies and people have excellent resources on their own websites. Click on Web Sections and Links above to see them. Three sites that are a good starting place are: The Columbus Department of Parks & Recreation has an excellent information on the trails, pdf maps and information on the various parks and their facilities. You can find that here: Columbus Department of Recreation and Parks: Welcome... The Central Ohio Metroparks also have a lot of information on their parks, trails and events here: The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. MORPC (pronounced "Morp-sea") is a kind of central coordinator for a lot of trail-related information. You can find it here: http://www.morpc.org/
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There are a lot of reasons for these trails: recreational use, health benefits, exposure to the local environment, bridging of communities and so on. Unlike parks, which are anchored in one spot, trail systems can bring the benefits of these activities right into neighborhoods themselves. They can connect our homes with parks, schools, points of interest, and so on. Unlike parks, they can take us places. And, of course, in this age of accelerating gas prices, global climate change and so on, the trail system offers helps to make walking and cycling and other alternative transportations methods more practical and extends the distance that can be covered and cuts the time needed to do so. Factor in the safety element--being able to traverse long distances with little or no automobile interactions and we have a resource that not only feeds our recreational needs but will be a factor in getting our petroleum needs under control in the future. We are blessed, in Columbus, with a relatively flat terrain which makes cycle commuting practical. I've been a runner most of my life. I ride a bike occasionally. I've lived in more than a few cities over the years and finding an accessible, well-built, well-maintained system of trails of varying sceneries and challenges here has been wonderful. And there is more: the various agencies involved are continuing to build trails, liking parks and neighborhoods. There are many things which contribute to the quality of life in a community. Trails, and parks, I think, are a major element of that. This site came about because, after discovering the trail system--in point of fact, the Olentangy Trail, I was quite enthusiastic about it to friends, many of whom had also moved in from out of town. I had a difficult time interesting them in--indeed, there were local people who were unaware of the trails--or who avoided them due to misinformation. So I took a few digital pictures and wrote a brief description and cobbled up a primitive map and put up the first version of this site. To my surprise, I began to get e-mail from people I did know who were interesting in the trails. From that point the site has grown to its current configuration. The intent is to detail the experience of the various trails through aerial maps, pictures and descriptions to a point where anyone can come away with a fair perception of what running or cycling or walking or strolling each of them (and they are different--and change several times themselves over their course) so as to encourage visitors to get out and use them and, ultimately, to support their construction and upkeep. The site is organize primarily by trail. The detail runs from north to south in most cases. The trails are broken into sections--my arbitrary choice though I feel that each section has a distinct character. There is no naming convention--I kind of make the names up. There are also pages which consolidate both the aerial maps and photo pages for easier access. And some other stuff which I've put up along the way. I hope it helps folks use and enjoy our trails system.
The MORPC folks have an official area trail website and you can access it at: http://www.centralohiogreenways.com/ . The site currently has a large clickable graphic map with the major trails highlighted. Using the common graphics and coordinated color scheme, it has pages for each trail with connections The map shows existing trails and projected routes for new trails to be added to the system. The individual pages (on completed or partially completed trails) describes the trails, trail-heads and so on. I have color coded the pages on this site to match up with their site. Eventually, as common trail signage and literature is created, it will use the colors and graphics of the Greenways Map.
2007/ Site Statistics Unique daily visits: 60,983 Page Views: 346, 783 Hits: 2, 552, 404 Average Daily Visitors: 180 Note: Web traffic on the site is considerably lower from November to March than April to October. During the winter months, | |
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GRAPHICAL TRAIL MAPThis is a one-page graphical rendering of the various trail pages on this site arranged in a rough map order. It is not to scale, the size of the boxes is not reflective of the length of that section. Clicking on the boxes will open up that particular trail page. The major trail headers will bring up the cover section for that trail. Arrows indicate that there is a street connection but no trail between those two sections. Where two boxes abut, there is continuous trail between them. White ground boxes indicate trail sections either planned or under construction but not yet open. Light tint boxes indicate on-road trail. The two yellow boxes call out local community trail systems which link to the major riparian trails. The entire map jpg can be accessed here by clicking on the thumbnail: |
| When I started using the trails, I was almost strictly a runner. These days, thanks to some creaky knees, I seem to be doing almost as much cycling as running. The descriptive approach may still favor the runner in me though newer sections take a more inclusive approach.. | A few provisos about this site. The general descriptions and order for most of these trails runs from north to south. That's because I live north of the city and tend think of the trails in that way. Descriptions of the reverse are not provided unless, as with changes in grades, it would substantially differ going south to north | I've tried to make the information as accurate and useful as possible. If you have a comment, a correction or a suggestions, please feel free to drop me a line at jnybny@mindspring.com. |
Like many places around the country, the Greater Columbus area and many surrounding Central Ohio cities and towns are in the process of developing recreational trails. These vary from large projects built as part of roads projects or as independent trails to community walking and bicycle paths. 
