The closest American national park to Monroe is Cleveland’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  Using the Ohio Turnpike, a visitor from Monroe can reach the park’s boundaries in two hours.  That places it just a bit more distant than Canada’s Point Pelee National Park near Leamington, Ontario.

One of the neatest aspects of the CVNP is the fact that both an old towpath trail and a short line railroad traverse the entire length of the park.  This makes it possible to bike one way on the trail and return via train to one’s parking area.  A hostel is located halfway, making an overnight weekend bike or hike possible.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that $2 train rides for bikers have boosted this kind of trip dramatically during the current tourist season.  Excerpts and link:

Railroad officials started the “Bike Aboard” program last summer, which allows cyclists to bike the Towpath Trail in one direction and ride the train in the other for $2. The fare is a drastic reduction from the usual $15 boarding fee ($10 for kids) for traveling anywhere along the length the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

It has tripled bike-and-train use this summer.

The National Park Service began funding alternative transportation programs in 1998, but is increasing its emphasis as public awareness increases about the connection between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming.

The Park Service is now expected to spend $78 million a year through 2020 to develop ways to reduce automobile traffic in the nation’s parks.

In other parks around the country, that emphasis has meant adding natural-gas fired buses or other mass-transit vehicles to bring visitors in and out of areas like Zion National Park in Utah or Acadia National Park in Maine.

But Cuyahoga Valley National Park — which covers 33,000 acres from Akron to Cleveland — is trying to better take advantage of the railroad and Towpath that literally run right down its middle.

Full article:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/08/cuyahoga_valley_scenic_railroa.html

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