There are no Trails

I've been noodling around on the back roads lately keeping an eye out for side roads and trails to follow. It's been disappointing. Trails are few and far between, and they rarely go anywhere. Generally, side utility roads are fenced off and some even have security cameras. There's hardly any evidence that people leave the main roads, except for footpaths around Amish farms.

It's pretty weird. If you go to the Allegheny National Forest, utility roads aren't closed off. Do people steal pipes? Around here even the gravel driveway to a natural gas well is closed and fenced off. Why aren't there trails? Most of the roads in northeast Ohio are on a rectangular grid, so presumably there would be some trails that cut across the grid for foot traffic. But I'll be hard pressed to find even one.

In lower population density areas, like the eastern set of townships in Geauga County much of the land off secondary roads is wooded or is farmland and is rarely crossed by human feet. For example, in Montville Township, the population density was 81 per square mile according to the 2000 census; if those people gridded themselves across the township, there would be one person per 178 meters. There are some roads that are surrounded by woods or farms, but generally, there are no trespassing signs.

The default position of land owners is to keep people from walking (or riding) through parts of their property that are remote from a house (if one is present). The default position is probably reasonable. In my imagination, I see a trail network peopled with hikers and cyclists around northeast Ohio, but it would probably turn into an ATV trail/garbage dump/shooting range pretty quickly.

It would take a monumental effort to convince people to pass Freedom to Roam laws in Ohio. There's been a crazy amount of resistance to rail-to-trail bike paths in Ohio. Presumably there would be exponentially more resistance to foot/bike paths through marginally used lands. But let's ignore that reality for now.

It could be possible to build a network of trails around Northeast Ohio that would turn the area into something unique--a mixed use park with hundreds of miles of trails.

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Here's a pretty interesting article detailing the legal history of the right to roam in the US.