COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Seven miles of former train tracks could be transformed into a not-so-wide public park and pathway that extends through the Linden and Northland communities.
The location of the proposed future linear park, dubbed the Linden Green Line, averages only about 80 feet wide but stretches across 58 acres of Columbus. The city is in the process of purchasing the previously private property — an abandoned rail corridor that runs north from Windsor Park in Linden, past State Route 161, to Cooper Park in Northland.
The southern border of the property the city is looking to buy is just east of the Douglas Moore Community Center in South Linden. (NBC4/Sarah Donaldson)
Weeds shot through the tracks at the southern edge of that property, just east of the Douglas Community Center in South Linden, on a sweltering summer Wednesday.
The Linden Green Line is in its earliest stages, according to a spokesperson for the Columbus Parks and Recreation Department. It could take close to two months for the city to even acquire the property, but money to purchase it is now in place.
Columbus City Council voted unanimously Monday to accept a grant and appropriate its own funding for the project. That $2.47 million grant awarded by the Ohio Public Works Commission will be matched by the city, with about $4.95 million total funding available for the project, according to the ordinance.
Councilmember Mitchell Brown said the money will bring the “first ever linear park in central Ohio to fruition.” Long and thin, linear parks snake through other urban areas in the U.S. — likely the most well-known being the High Line in New York City, which is on a former elevated train line.
A city-rendered map of the proposed Linden Green Line shows opportunities for connections with other public parks and additional shared-use paths that branch off from the main “line.” Based on a study of city neighborhoods by the department of parks and recreation, 131,000 residents would be within a 10-minute drive of the Green Line.
An earlier proposal for a project along the same stretch of property, nestled within the department’s five-year greenways plan for 2018 through 2022, initially envisioned the Linden Green Line as even longer — at 13 miles.
The department spokesperson said that while the city doesn’t foresee any problems with buying the property, it won’t release more details about the project until the purchase is finalized.
