(Toledo, OH) The Toledo area Metroparks hopes to link East Toledo to downtown through a new bike path. The Metroparks wants federal matching funds for a trail connector that would tie together Waite High School, the Marina District, International Park, and existing riverfront bike trails that run from the Middlegrounds Metropark, past Owens Corning and along the Greenbelt Parkway to I-280.
The $1.2 million project would run through the new urban waterfront Metropark in the Marina District and include a pedestrian bridge over Main Street into International Park. The bike path would be among the first projects to create that new Metropark along the Maumee River in East Toledo.
The Metroparks also wants to better tie South Toledo together with an urban bike connector.
The Metroparks is seeking federal funding through TMACOG to provide a missing section of bike trail that would connect Swan Creek Metropark to other South Toledo locations, including Bowsher High School, the University of Toledo medical campus, and a run to Maumee.
The federal clean-air funds would cover 80 percent of the $2.5 million cost of The Swan Creek trail improvement. The connector would run from Swan Creek Metropark to Byrne Road, a distance of about one-and-a-half miles, winding east-west between Glendale Avenue and Airport Highway.