Cleveland’s trail systems were a topic of conversation this week at a nationwide summit which took place Downtown.
The Trail Nation Summit, hosted by the Rails to Trails Conservancy, provided masterclasses centered around marketing, mapping and overcoming barriers to trail connectivity for rural, suburban and urban stakeholders across the country.
"This gathering of people is about how to make the connections in that network," Rails to Trails Senior Director of Programming Eric Oberg said. "How do we make our trails in these places connect to each other so that they can maximize their full potential?"
During the summit, attendees toured several of Cleveland's trail systems, which were a major factor in selecting Cleveland as the host city, Oberg said.
"Whether it's the Towpath or the lakefront or the ... Redline Greenway," he said. "The way they're being built and the way they're being managed and the... way all of these things happen in Cleveland, we really think is a model for other places."
There are more than 40,000 miles of multi-use trails across the country. Trails can improve residential access to the outdoors, decrease reliance on personal vehicles and boost local economies, Oberg said, but community building is a major benefit.
"The more you talk to people face-to-face, the better you are at understanding each other, talking and getting over differences. And we just don't have enough of that. We don't have enough human contact, and trails are real conduits to that human contact and community and that to me is a benefit that you can't quantify."
But park systems in Cleveland and across the conservancy's 40-state reach have room to improve when it comes to equitable access to trails. Trail development typically comes to fruition in wealthy, predominantly white communities, Oberg said, allowing low-income, marginalized communities to fall to the wayside.
"So, finding ways to ensure that entire communities are connected and have access to trails and trail networks is a place that most communities aren’t doing well in and traditionally haven't."
To address the lack of equity, stakeholders must prioritize points of connection in disenfranchised neighborhoods, Oberg said, in a way akin to Cleveland Metroparks' prioritization of connectivity trails for East Side residents connecting them to the lakefront.
The convention ends Wednesday, but Oberg said he hopes attendees leave energized to advocate for more trail projects.
"We hope to see all kinds of different activities happening around the country that were spurred from the discussions and the learning that happened here," he said.
Oberg said he hopes participants will leave this week’s Trail Nation Summit in Cleveland with a network of collaborators to support equitable expansions of their own trails.
