DESCRIPTION

This section gets a little different treatment because it is very different from the rest of the trail. 

The Routing: (Corrected 6/12/04)

Leaving Northmoor Park from the trail-head, you go up the parking lot road out of the park and exit to the intersection of Northmoor Pl and Olentangy Blvd. A right turn puts you on Olentangy Blvd going south. Follow the road through the intersection with Orchard Ln to where it ends and turns left and becomes Kenworth Rd. There's a long block (you'll pass the painted street strip for MM 6.5 about the middle of the block, opposite #224 Kenworth.) to Milton Ave which goes right. A short block and you will reach the intersection with North Broadway St. There is a traffic signal and a pedestrian crossing. There are traffic crossing buttons mounted on poles right at the roadway. After crossing, you stay on Milton which winds a bit. The Park and Recreation brochure would have it that you make the first right turn on to Brighton, follow that street until it dead ends and then turn south on River Rd. and follow this to the entry to Clinton-Como park. River Rd. however, is one way in the wrong direction and not much more than a dirt track. The actual bike trail continues on Milton and splits due to one way streets. Stay on Milton until it turns one-way and dead ends at Como Ave and then turn right and follow Como to the park entrance. The approach to the intersection is narrow, barely more than an alley and about half of Como Ave is brick pavement which can be bumpy and slippery. In traveling the other, northerly direction, exit the park and go straight ahead along River Rd. to Delhi St. Turn left and go up Delhi, which is also a somewhat narrow, unevenly paved road. At the top of the rise, turn left onto Milton and the rest is just the reverse of the above.

IMPRESSIONS

Most of the 6 or 7 tenths of a mile of this section are on relatively quiet suburban streets with sidewalks or shoulders that offer a wide berth for avoiding traffic. There are a couple of points, though, which can be tricky and dangerous. On the north side of North Broadway St, the intersection of Milton and Kenworth is particularly problematic. It is a split intersection, for starters so cars are turning. Kenworth, going east toward Milton drops down and rises up into the intersection. There is a sidewalk on Kenworth but Milton doesn't have one and the road continues to rise to North Broadway with very narrow shoulders and banked sides which don't offer much room if you need to duck out of traffic in a hurry. The upside is that, going south on the trail, you are turning right and the traffic on the short stretch of Milton is usually at a halt waiting for the light. For oncoming traffic turning left off Milton onto Kenworth, it is a blind turn so they can't see you if you are running in the middle of the street going the other way. If you are traveling north on the trail, you have to run downhill across Kenworth to the other sidewalk against through traffic on Milton which is turning on and then off of Kenworth. Since Milton is an outlet street with a traffic signal, there are usually cars waiting to turn on North Broadway from either direction which means that you have turning cars across your running lane as you go across.

On the south side of North Broadway, things are a little easier. There are shoulders or sidewalks on most of the roads, traffic tends to be a little less dense and goes slower and there are no real dangerous blind turns or rises.

If there is an issue here, it is that, after coming from either of the Parks Sections with their easy traffic free atmosphere, this short stretch of surface streets--the only extended one along the entire trail--requires attentiveness and caution.

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