Wooster’s expanding trail network paving the way for regional connections

Eventually, paved trails will connect Wooster to the world — or at least to the surrounding towns and maybe even counties. Where it goes from there remains to be seen.

For now, though, a one-time dream is growing little by little into reality. The hope is for Wooster to one day have bike paths connecting all parts of the city, adding to the 11 or so miles of trail currently in operation.

“When the city had a major road improvement, they did some of this,” said Jeff Battig of Wayne Trails, which keeps a keen eye on the development. “It just takes time.”

“And money,” said Don Noble II, president of Rails to Trails of Wayne County.

Battig was Wooster’s Recreation and Community Center manager when the city started getting serious about its trails. The idea was to provide a nonmotorized transportation option to residents, according to the city’s Bike Path Plan, which also said the public’s needs were not adequately served by existing paths and trails.

That was in 2015. Fast forward 10 years and things have gotten a lot better. There’s just a long way to go — figuratively and literally.

“Urban trail development takes time and is expensive,” Battig said at a recent meeting of the Wayne Trails Committee. “So a lot of it is piece by piece. A lot of it is how much funding you can get.”

A map detailing the City of Wooster Bike Path Plan — 2025 version — shows plans for several more miles of trails than the 2015 version. It also shows more completed paths, things that weren’t there a decade ago.

This includes paths at Wooster Memorial Park and Oak Hill Park, as well as routes through and around the city. The goal is to be able to circumnavigate the town, going from the area near Ohio State University on the south end to the north end commercial area in either direction. Much of that can be accomplished now, as well as a route that bisects the city on Beall and Burbank roads.

At the same time, connecting Wooster with various other towns and trailheads is on a lot of minds. That includes the likes of Orrville, Dalton, Apple Creek and anywhere else a bike will travel locally, but also places a little less local.

Connecting Wooster with Fredericksburg was discussed as long ago as 2017, with the Holmes County Trail linking with Wooster, connecting the city with Fredericksburg, about 15 miles away.

This effectively connects Wayne and Holmes counties. This is great for leisurely riders, but there’s another audience interested in these types of developments.

“The nice thing is the Holmes County Trail is a two-lane trail, and it’s paved,” Battig said. “That’s good for E-bikes and the Amish.”

It’s definitely not merely for recreational use.

“It’s a highway,” Noble said. “The Amish go back and forth to work. Holmes County is the highest county in the country for per capita use of E-bikes.”

With E-bikes becoming more and more popular with the Amish, who are eschewing buggies when not needing to carry a lot with them, more trail miles available will be a boon for commerce. E-bikes are faster and safer than buggies; the trails allow them to travel off of roadways.

“In this community they’re for transportation,” Battig said of the trails and E-bikes. “They’re becoming more affordable. They know the value of that trail.”

By law an E-bike can go up to 28 mph. Above that, they’re considered motorized vehicles. The Amish know how to soup them up, though, which could be a concern as trails become more plentiful and then more crowded.

And for the non-Amish, according to Bike Europe, a medium that tracks such matters on a worldwide basis, E-bikes now comprise more than half the revenue share among all bicycles worldwide and nearly 30% of the U.S. market in 2025.

The trails, though, are likely to be seen by locals as more recreational. Serious bicycle riders like to hit the actual roads with their fancy bikes and color-themed outfits. They’ll seldom be seen on paved trails and almost never on crushed-limestone paths.

“We see a lot of walkers and joggers as well,” Battig said. “You see your families, and you see your people walking.”

With trailheads on routes from Holmes County to Fredericksburg, Killbuck and Glenmont, a Wooster-Fredericksburg trail and other trails outside the city will eventually provide hubs that will essentially connect things from here to Cincinnati or Cleveland, depending on which way you want to head.

Though the area trails being planned will be 10-foot-wide paved paths, they will connect with trails that are crushed limestone, many built on old railroad beds. That includes 92% of the trail from Cincinnati to Cleveland.

That is what’s known as the Ohio to Erie Trail, a 326-mile pathway that links the Ohio River and Lake Erie, mostly via rail trails and canal paths that wind through Akron and Columbus on the way to or from Cleveland and Cincinnati.

For now, though, a major goal has been reached. By linking with Fredericksburg, Wooster is connected to Holmes County and other points south.

“We wanted to get key people to join the ride,” Battig said. “We wanted to connect to the Holmes County Trail. We had established an on-road trail from Wooster to Fredericksburg, and the desire was to eventually have a permanent trail.”