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Council debates new definition and rules for recreational trails; first reading introduced
Summary
Council members discussed an ordinance to define and regulate recreational trails in the traffic code, treating city-installed paved paths like sidewalks for traffic rules but exempting property owners from maintenance obligations; the measure was introduced for first reading.
Pepper Pike City Council on July 8 held a detailed first-reading discussion of an ordinance to add "recreational trail" to the city's traffic code and to regulate trail use.
City counsel and staff described the measure as a definitional change that would allow the city to apply traffic and usage rules to paved recreational trails the city has installed while clarifying that property owners are not responsible for routine maintenance of those trails. Counsel said the city's existing sidewalk rules rely on a definition that assumes sidewalks sit between a curb and an adjacent private property line; some paved multiuse paths the city has installed do not meet that definition.
Council members asked whether designating such pathways as "recreational trails" would change homeowner liability, maintenance responsibilities and how the city would treat uses such as e-bikes. Counsel said the proposal is intended to make the municipal code consistent with state law regarding recreational trails and to "treat[] [the trails] as though they were sidewalks" for purposes of traffic and behavioral regulations, "with the exception of the obligation of the adjoining property owner to maintain the trail itself." Councilmembers suggested drafting clarifications: defining recreational trails as paved pathways "installed by the city" and adding language to capture pathways adjacent to or between roadways. Several members raised public-safety concerns about high-speed e-bikes and bicycles on the paths as a reason to include the definition in the traffic code.
Council did not vote to adopt the ordinance; members agreed to refine the drafting language and to return the measure for a subsequent reading once counsel and staff make the clarifications. Staff and council also discussed which existing city-installed paths (examples cited included pathways along New Brainerd and Chagrin roads and the Gates Mills Boulevard median) would fall under the new definition.
