$2.5 million stimulus will extend towpath and replace bridge
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Friday, Oct 02, 2009
Akron is getting $2.5 million in federal stimulus funding to complete its final half-mile portion of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.
The project also calls for replacing a West Bartges Street bridge over the canal near Canal Place.
The new bridge will be twin precast concrete modular bridges that will cross the canal and allow the trail to proceed underneath the span.
Bids are expected to be sought in January with construction to begin in March or April, said Michael Teodecki, project manager for the city.
Completion is expected by mid-2011, he said, at a total price tag of $7.4 million.
Akron has received two other federal grants totaling $1.53 million and a state grant for $1.5 million for the project, Teodecki said. Summit County provided $50,000.
Akron will pay the balance: about $1.8 million, he said.
The project will extend the popular bike-and-hike trail from 740 feet south of Cedar Street near the Advanced Elastomer Systems complex to about 550 feet southwest of West Bartges Street. That is about 0.53 miles.
The trail, concrete over a stone base, will be 10 feet wide with 2-foot shoulders.
An abandoned Falor Street Bridge will be removed as part of the project.
Completing the Bartges section will leave only one unfinished portion of the trail in Summit County: 1.25 miles from Eastern Road in New Franklin to Snyder Avenue in Barberton. Metro Parks, Serving Summit County is pursuing that $2.2 million project.
Today, 82 miles of Towpath Trail are complete in Summit, Stark, Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas counties, with another 19 miles still to go.
More than $85.2 million has been invested in the trail, which annually gets 2.2 million users.
It is the centerpiece of the 110-mile Ohio & Erie Canal National Heritage Canalway that runs from Cleveland through Akron and Canton to New Philadelphia.
Akron recently opened a new stretch of trail from Summit Lake south to West Waterloo Road at a cost of $5.2 million.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
