Canal Basin District Plan Approved with Unanimous Vote by CPC

Repost from Downtown Cleveland:

Cleveland City Planning Commission Approves the Canal Basin District Plan

View of the Towpath along Scranton Road facing Downtown

On Friday last week, the Cleveland City Planning Commission, by unanimous vote, adopted the Canal Basin District Plan. The plan, which is sponsored by Downtown Cleveland Alliance, the City of Cleveland and Ohio Canal Corridor, was presented by Greg Calpino of the nationally prominent landscape architecture firm JJR. The overview of the project and the plan was given by Tom Yablonsky, Executive Vice President of Downtown Cleveland Alliance.

The centerpiece of the Canal Basin District Plan is the proposed Canal Basin Park, which will include the current Settlers Landing Park and expand it to a new 24 acre signature park for the city. In addition to the park, the plan coordinates necessary linkages to nearby neighborhoods and from the last phase of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.

“This plan is significant because it builds on our city’s legacy of the Emerald Necklace,” said Tom Yablonsky, Vice President of Downtown Cleveland Alliance. “In that spirit, the Canal Basin District Plan proposes a dynamic and comprehensive framework of trail investments that build upon the proposed Canal Basin Park. Together, the park and its trail linkages will become the northern terminus of both the Towpath Trail and the 110 mile Ohio & Erie Canalway. The plan provides the vision for access to world-class parks for Downtown and Cleveland’s most central neighborhoods, access that Cleveland’s surrounding neighborhoods and suburbs have enjoyed for decades.”

The Canal Basin District Park Plan identified and evaluated all possible trail linkages that could connect Canal Basin Park to adjacent Downtown amenities and nearby city neighborhoods. Based on public input and subsequent planning and engineering analysis, three strategic trail loops have been proposed:

• Lakefront Loop: which links Canal Basin Park to Nautica, Wendy Park and Edgewater Park. The loop also incorporates the proposed West Shoreway Improvements.
• Downtown Loop: which links the park to downtown neighborhoods through key links to the Flats East Bank, The Historic Warehouse District, Northcoast Harbor, Public Square and the Convention Center/Medical Mart
• Canal District Loop: which links the park to key river front projects including the newly proposed Cleveland Rowing Foundation location, Hart Crane Park and the proposed ParkWorks Lake Link Trail.
  
  For a map of the proposed loops, click here (PDF - 1.76 MB)

For more information on the next steps towards implementing the Canal Basin District Plan and the larger Towpath Trail project contact Tom Yablonsky at tyablonsky@dcacleveland.net or 216-736-7799. To view the presentation to the City Planning Commission, click here (PDF - 6.19 MB). For a map of the overall Canal Basin District Plan, click here (PDF - 4.42 MB)

This entry was written by Josh, posted on May 10, 2010 at 2:48 pm

Tow Path Trail Completion Likely Many Years from Reality - Down to 2/3 a of a Mile

Well written article regarding the Harshaw site. It looks as if the only thing that will expedite this process is if something posed a threat to homeland security. In actuality, constant pressure on congress and senate are the only likely things that will make this happen sooner,

Reposted from Cleveland.com:
Radioactive industrial site stands in way of completing Cleveland's Towpath Trail | Metro - cleveland.com - cleveland.com

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Radioactive industrial site stands in way of completing Cleveland's Towpath Trail

By Michael Scott

January 26, 2010, 9:00AM

John Kuntz, The Plain DealerRadioactive material signs are posted on the fence perimeter around the old Harshaw Chemical Plant that used to refine uranium during World War II. The Ohio Canal Corridor is trying to finish the last leg of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail routing it by the former chemical plant.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Uranium-235 has a radioactive half-life of roughly 700 million years.

Tim Donovan is afraid it might take that long to find a way to get the Towpath Trail built through Cleveland.

But Donovan, the director of the Ohio Canal Corridor, is also now more desperate than ever to find a way across 55 acres along the Cuyahoga River to build one of the final legs of the long-anticipated hiking and biking trail.

There's only one thing standing in his way -- radioactive soil.

Worse, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a lengthy report Jan. 20 that the site will not host the Towpath Trail anytime soon.

That conclusion was made even though remaining uranium and other radioactive materials in the soil at the former Harshaw Chemical site just south of the Harvard-Denison bridge are not deemed too dangerous to prevent the land being used for passive recreation.

 Federal officials said last week they will follow a methodical, predetermined process that will likely mean another four or five years before the planning and cleanup of the property is complete.

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Workers at Harshaw had refined uranium for the production of atomic bombs during World War II -- part of the then-mysterious Manhattan Project -- leaving behind a microscopic-but-lethal legacy of their wartime work.

How long Cleveland's radioactive past will obstruct the hiking and bicycling path of its future might depend on whether Donovan and others can sway the federal agency to accelerate its work -- or if he can find another way around the site.

"If you look at the Towpath Trail as a whole, we've got 88 of 101 miles complete and open to the public," Donovan said. "But apparently it will still be a long, long march to the sea.

"This might end up the most difficult two-thirds of a mile of trail to be built in America."

John Kuntz, The PDTim Donovan, director of the Ohio Canal Corridor, points out how a future leg of the Towpath Trail might run under the Harvard-Denison Bridge in Cleveland. Donovan is seeking a way to connect the trail from Harvard Avenue toward Steelyard Commons, but can't cross a property that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says still has radioactive contamination from the refining of uranium in World War II.Meanwhile, the remaining pieces of what will be the northernmost end of the trail are either under design or will be shortly, once land is purchased -- at a cost that could reach another $47 million, he said. The group will be seeking federal money under theGreat Lakes Restoration Initiativeto help pay for some of those costs.

The Ohio Canal Corridor group will hold a public hearing in March on the design for the segment from Steelyard Commons north to Literary Avenue and the group is about to buy 11 acres of land near Scranton Avenue that would host the final leg.

"If those things happen, we'll be cutting ribbon and using that portion of the trail," he said. "But what happens with the Harshaw piece will depend on how quickly we can get the Army Corps to move."

But moving quickly at a site where more than 1,500 workers once refined uranium for atomic bombs simply isn't likely, federal officials and contractors hired to investigate the site said this week.

From 1944 to 1959, the company was contracted by the Manhattan Engineering District and the Atomic Energy Commission to refine uranium, which was then shipped to Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The commission OK'd the site for "unrestricted use" a year later, but later reports showed that the company had discharged some 4,000 pounds of radioactive uranium-fluoride particles into the air each year and that that traces of uranium and other compounds remained in the buildings and soil on site, according to records.

Eventually, federal authorities placed Harshaw in the Superfund cleanup program and paid out more than $5.5 million to former workers who were contaminated and their families, a spokesman said.

Plain Dealer fileFederal authorities and hired contractors have been working to clean up the former Harshaw Chemical site in Cleveland for more than a decade. Workers shown here in 2003 were conducting tests at the site and some contaminated materials were taken away as recently as 2008.The Army Corps released its first assessment of Harshaw in April 2001, a more detailed investigation in 2006 (which revealed the presence of another radioactive element, thorium) and finally a 1,000-page update in late 2009.

A summary of that report was shared with residents and public officials Jan. 20. A copy of the full document is on file at the Brooklyn branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library, 4480 Ridge Road or online.

It ultimately concludes that there remains "no imminent threat to human health or the environment" at the site, which is now used only sparingly by two other industrial landowners.

"But that does not mean there aren't long-term health risks, depending on the land use," said Jeff DeVaughn of private contractor Science Applications International Corp. of Twinsburg, which has overseen the investigation and cleanup since 2001. "If the land were to be used for a resident or a farmer -- the most sensitive land use there is -- with little kids running around eating dirt, the standard for cleanup is much higher.

"But when you get into recreational, people don't spend as much time there, they move through quickly, so that lessens their exposure, which is why the level of risk changes."

And there lies any hope Donovan and others have for completing the trail from Harvard Avenue north to Steelyard Commons.

"That's what we need to get the Army Corps to understand -- that there is a public consensus that this land will be used for a recreational trail," Donovan said. "Otherwise, if they end up cleaning it up to an agricultural standard and fence it off five years from now, it may never get used for anything.

"I don't think anybody wants that."

History of the Towpath

 The current Towpath Trail -- even incomplete -- is a nod to Ohio's 19th century history.

The Ohio & Erie Canal, a network of waterways connecting the state to the big cities back East, enjoyed a relatively short, but mighty place in U.S. history -- opening in the early 1800s, but losing its value with the advent of the railroad in the 1860s.

Plain Dealer fileThe Towpath Trail, looking north behind the Steelyard Commons, borders a series of railroad tracks on the east side and loading docks of stores on the west side in Cleveland, just south of the Tremont neighborhood. Past the Steelyard Commons, the Towpath Trail runs uphill to West 14th Street past an exit ramp from the Jennings Freeway. Planners are trying to figure a way to connect the Steelyard segment to Harvard Avenue, but are being stalled at the former Harshaw Chemical site.

The remnants of that network are preserved in the Ohio and Erie Canal Historic District and theCuyahoga Valley National Parkstill operates one of the locks for visitors.

The Towpath Trail -- a planned 101-mile path following the historic Ohio & Erie Canal from New Philadelphia through the national park and into Cleveland to the lake -- is already complete except for a few urban or industrial fragments in Cleveland and short spans in Akron and Barberton.

The first segment, nearly 20 miles through the national park, opened in 1993. The national park now boasts of more than 2 million annual visitors on its scenic portion of the trail.

More than $85 million has since been spent by various government agencies, nonprofits and private landowners to buy land and build and maintain the trails, either paved or hard-packed stone often through the rural landscape in several counties.

Several new legs have been completed recently. Trail planners in August 2008 opened a new bridge over Ohio 59 in Akron, connecting that city north all the way to Harvard Avenue in Cleveland.

Akron also dedicated a unique floating section of the Towpath in 2009, a third-of-a-mile wooden pathway across wetlands near Summit Lake in south Akron.

In Cleveland, developer Mitchell Schneider spent $1 million to build the segment of the trail behind his Steelyard Commons.

Then, late in 2009, The Trust for Public Land said it had closed a $3.2 million deal to preserve 1.3 miles of abandoned rail bed on the west bank of the Flats for a future trail network -- a segment that would join with the Towpath Trail.

Abandoned rail bed along Cuyahoga River would make Cleveland's waterfronts more accessible -- editorial

I've known for years (as have many others) about Irishtown Bend's slope problems. The city surely has known since they repaved it every year or so while the shortcut between the east and west bank was open; that is, a shortcut during the shipping season's inevitable closing of a lift bridge while a ship made its way to and from the steel yards. I bet one could find at least a foot thick layer of asphalt at the corner where most of the slippage is happening. Does the additional weight of this asphalt perpetuate the slippage?

A somewhat similar thing happened to a portion of I-71 between the Denison Avenue Bridge and the Fulton Road/West 25th Street exit ramp. Much of that are of I-71 is built on a landfill. This particular portion of the freeway would develop a dip and every year or so ODOT would come in and add a layer of pavement. Don't know how many years this was going on, but someone somewhere made the decision to fix it permanently.

I had the opportunity to be on site halfway through the project. I was at least 30 ft below the southbound portion of the freeway - the northbound portion was completely dug up and sent away. Walking around the site was a test in foot skills. There were little spots of earth-like material which, when step on, would become a soft batter-like substance. If the pancake-sized spots were large enough, a person could have easily been sucked in. As it were, if one unknowingly stepped into one of the spots in a certain way, they easily could have tripped and then have some stinky, landfill batter on their boots.

The asphalt layer was a site to behold. When first driving up to it, you could see it was large. But when I was right up to it - well, as close as they would let me - the enormity was mind blowing. No joke - a SUV or minivan could be buried inside of the asphalt and nobody would have known. After they removed the asphalt and as mush of the unstable soil as they could, new soil was added to the site and then about a 10 foot thick layer of some man-made compound that is supposed to keep the ground stable enough to handle the weight of the traffic, as well as the actual infrastructure. 

Is this something that could be used for Irishtown Bend? Don't know - I'm not an engineer. There is also Puritas Hill to think about. There are/were slope issues there before it was closed and the road stabilized. I don't have story for that - it just popped into my head. Regardless, it will be a great day when the Tow Path Trail is complete. Hopefully it won't take as long as the PeeDee implies.

Abandoned rail bed along Cuyahoga River would make Cleveland's waterfronts more accessible -- editorial

By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board

January 03, 2010, 4:02AM

The deal that enables Parkworks, the superb Cleveland nonprofit, to take ownership of a 1.3-mile strip of abandoned rail bed along the west bank of the Cuyahoga River represents the culmination of many months of careful work, planning and negotiating by a wide coalition of public and private actors who share a common goal: to help make Cleveland a more beautiful, livable, exciting city by making its waterfronts more accessible.

But the $3.2 million transaction -- engineered by the conservation group Trust for Public Land, with a $1.2 million grant from the state of Ohio and a $2 million donation from property-owner Earl Walker, a local investor and college professor -- is far from the end of this collaboration's efforts.

Parkworks now will hire -- with help from the George Gund Foundation -- a design and engineering team to turn the coalition's vision of riverside trails, green space and wetlands into a workable plan.

As cost estimates emerge, Parkworks and other partners will begin looking for sources to pay for it.

Eventually, the idea is to link this system with the Towpath Trail -- which, when complete, will stretch for 110 miles from Tuscarawas County to Canal Basin Park on the east bank of the river -- and with the county's Wendy Park on Whiskey Island.

City and county officials have been working to secure money -- much of it from Washington, they hope -- to build two pedestrian walkways and to rehabilitate the old Whiskey Island Coast Guard station.

They also are seeking grants to stabilize a slope along Irishtown Bend that engineers fear could slide into the Cuyahoga.

Discussions of this project began in 2006. Two years later, landscape architects from San Francisco doing survey work in the Flats noticed an overgrown track bed that had been built in 1856 as part of the Ohio & Mahoning Railroad. They realized that it not only offered an ideal connection from Ohio City and Tremont north to Whiskey Island, it also ran smack into property under the Main Avenue Bridge that the county already owns.

Completing this project will take years. But the cooperation and civic leadership that have brought it this far bode well for its success.

Where on Cuyahoga Could We Do This?

This IS interesting.
Perhaps some new realignment of the Tow Path Trail is in order here.

From Stuff To Think About:

Water Bridge

Check out this bridge.



It took 6 years and 500 million euros to build! At 918 meters long, this is the largest water bridge. It was built over the Elbe River in Magdeburg, Germany.

I found a neat trivia question about the bridge: Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?

Answer:
It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water! Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the same as the ship, regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded. Neat, huh?

posted by CJ at 3/20/2007 07:02:00 AM