Weird but true: if NEORSD "brings back the brook," you won't be able to take a walk next to the brook

I love going for walks alongside Doan Brook. The ravine downstream of Lower Shaker Lake is one of my favorite places in the world, and honestly, I've easily spent more time there than I have at the lakes. We're so lucky to have a place like that where you can feel like you're out in wild nature even though you're still in the middle of a city. Here are some pictures I've taken on walks in the ravine:

 

It's such a magical place and I just love it so much.

The ravine isn't the only place to go for a nice walk by Doan Brook. The Nature Center, of course, also provides that opportunity. There are also other lesser-known spots such as the valley downstream of the dam at Horseshoe Lake (note that in the currently existing park, there's a trail next to the brook):

 

And the section of the brook west of Lee Road, between the two lakes, is another really nice spot:

 

As the section of brook perhaps least altered by humans, this shows roughly what the brook would look like where the lakes are if the lakes didn't exist.

Okay, that's not really true, because if the lakes didn't exist, much of Doan Brook would almost certainly have been diverted underground into culverts and/or had a highway built over it. But in the fantasy world where the lakes didn't exist but people still valued the brook enough to leave it in a semi-natural state, that's probably what it would look like.

So if I love going for walks by Doan Brook so much, why am I so adamantly opposed to the proposal to replace the lakes with brook restoration projects?

Well, as I've stated, I think it's a bad idea to get rid of something so rare that has so much value to the community and replace it with more of something we already have. But it turns out there's another reason that I didn't even realize until recently and that I suspect most people also don't realize.

Going for walks next to the brook is great. In the Sewer District's plan for a new park, you actually won't be able to do that.

I hadn't realized this until I went for a walk around the Sewer District's similar brook restoration completed in 2019 next to the Cleveland Museum of Art. I don't have any big complaints about that project, by the way; it's an improvement on what was previously in that space. When I walked on the path around it, though, I was very struck by how separated I was from the water.

At the north and south ends, there are bridges where you do actually have good views of the brook:

 

To the west of the brook, not only can you not get close to the water, but due to the thick vegetation you can't even see the water at all:

 

To the east of the brook, the trail is farther from the brook and at a higher elevation, and there are some limited views of the water but most of the time you also can't see the water:

 

All in all, if you just take a walk on the roughly half-mile path that goes around this brook segment, you'll only be able to see the brook a little more than 10% of the time.

 

I had always imagined that a park with a restored brook as its centerpiece would include trails that were, you know, next to the brook, like we already have at many other sections of Doan Brook. (If you hadn't felt this way, do let me know! Maybe I'm off base here and most people didn't feel this way, but it would surprise me. I'm also imagining semantics arguments about what "next to the brook" means, but to me there's a very clear distinction between a brook like in the pictures at the top of this post and a brook with an impenetrable buffer zone between the water and places people can go.) Would the Sewer District's new park really have a brook like this, where dense vegetation cuts people off from getting close to the water?

 

I watched the video of a flyover of another stream restoration that the Sewer District proudly linked to on their Horseshoe project PR page and noticed that it had a similar aesthetic:

 

 

 

I looked at renderings of the Horseshoe project and saw that they also looked similar: 

 

 

I wanted to make sure I was interpreting this correctly, so I went to a recent walking tour of the Horseshoe project and asked an NEORSD rep. He confirmed to me that yes, although there will be some limited places with direct water access, for the most part there will be a thick vegetation buffer that separates people from the brook.

People will be able to view the brook from far away, there will be a few bridges that cross over the brook, and there will be a couple places where you can actually touch the water. But going for a walk directly alongside the brook? You simply will not be able to do that.

This is a design decision that makes complete sense from a stormwater management perspective. It makes no sense from the perspective of designing a space for humans to enjoy.

The Shaker Parklands exist on land that was granted to the city of Cleveland with the requirement that it be a park in perpetuity. Taking such a beloved, historic place and transforming it into something that is half park, half stormwater management project seems problematic to me.

These parks have incredible value to the community. There's an unspoken assumption by proponents of the NEORSD project that that value can be replaced by parks that don't have lakes. I think that's unlikely, but even if it were possible, any design decision that compromises the park experience in favor of more optimal stormwater management makes it even less likely.

Here's a thought exercise. Imagine if the Sewer District had asked people, "Do you have a preference between a park that has trails next to the brook vs. a park with limited ability to get close to water?" How do you think people would have answered?

Of course, that question was never asked, and I'd imagine that people also didn't ask the Sewer District, "Will we be able to walk next to the brook in the new park?" Because why would they think to ask that?

How many people, when told the new park would restore the brook, would really imagine a park where you can't walk next to the brook?

And remember, the Sewer District is not only planning to do this at Horseshoe Lake, they've also recommended doing the same thing at Lower Lake. I'd like to invite people to think long and hard about what that would mean to the community if Lower Lake was replaced with a constructed stream that people can't even walk beside. And to consider what that says about the judgment of the people making these recommendations.

To be clear, city governments deserve equal blame for this fiasco, because they made the decision to put a regional stormwater management utility in charge of radically remaking a priceless community asset.  

I also want to say that, although some have attributed nefarious motivations to the people at the Sewer District who are working on this project, I don't think that's the case. The walking tour reinforced that to me. I think they're well-meaning people who genuinely think they're doing something good.

The problem is that they know a lot about stormwater management, but they don't know much about things like park design, human psychology, or the critical intersection of those subjects.

And yes, I know the Sewer District contracted out the park design to a nationally recognized firm. But it's an out-of-state firm that was incorrectly told that the project is transforming a 6-acre park into a 60-acre park, when the whole space is already a beloved park. And the park design has to fit into the constraints of removing a beautiful lake and replacing it with a stream surrounded by dense vegetation that cuts off human access. Thus, the project was fatally flawed from the start, no matter how good the park design firm is.

I would love to hear from people with your answers to these questions:

1. Were you aware of this aspect of the park design?

2. If you were aware, how did you know? If you weren't aware, how surprising do you find it?

3. How do you think it would affect the experience of spending time in the park?