Mount Air neighbors don't want cyclists in their backyards | Dispatch

TOM DODGE | DISPATCH

Barbara Bergmann and Gordon Grigsby object to a proposed bike path that would run between their house in Mount Air and the Olentangy River. Two other proposals would put the path on the other side of the river from their home.

The Olentangy River drifts lazily past the picture window in Gordon Grigsby’s house in Mount Air, an unincorporated community in northern Franklin County. He doesn’t want that view sullied by hundreds of bicyclists who might pedal past some day.

“It would be a disaster,” said Grigsby, a retired Ohio State University professor of modern literature and poetry.

A neighbor, Benjamin Knepper, wants to maintain the security and the peace and quiet he has known since he moved to Mount Air 25 years ago.

“It’s a unique place that’s kind of been forgotten for a long time,” he said. “Most of us kind of like it the way it is.”

Metro Parks officials are considering three routes to extend the Olentangy Greenway Trail northward to Highbanks Metro Park.

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