''We have two goals,'' said Johnny Ford, superintendent of park operations for Cincinnati parks. ''We want to keep traffic flowing and allow young people to cruise.
''At the same time, we, as a park system, want to be good neighbors to the people who live near the park.''
Twin Lakes, on the park's eastern edge and accessible by car via Lakes Drive, underwent a $600,000 renovation in 1994. The lakes were relined, and concrete sidewalks replaced crumbling, narrow blacktop walkways.
The latest ''special events'' traffic plan tries to circulate cruising automobiles over a long loop that stretches to the park's western boundary adjacent to Mount Adams. ''We're trying to keep as many people as we can in the park and off the nearby streets,'' said Mr. Ford, acknowledging that even this plan has faults. The primary problem is how traffic dumps onto Park Avenue or Victory Parkway.
Complaints of anti-black bias were raised by some community leaders in 1994 and 1995.
In 1994, Lakes Drive at the Twin Lakes Overlook and Cliff Drive above Columbia Parkway were closed to all Sunday traffic.
''That almost killed cruise night, which is not what we wanted to do,'' Mr. Ford said. ''That sent the wrong message. The truth is, everyone is welcome to use the parks, as long as they obey the rules.''
Mr. Ford, 38, is an African-American who remembers cruising a park in his native Little Rock, Ark., on Sunday nights as a teen-ager.
In 1995, Eden Park Drive was made into a one-way road on Sunday afternoon and evening from Gilbert Avenue to Victory Parkway.
Protests begin
On July 13, Rainbow PUSH Coalition members and other cruisers, urged on by radio personality Leslie Isaiah Gaines, turned up the volume on car radios in defiance. They said the police presence was too great. They carry signs that read, ''Get rid of segregated Sunday-only rules.''
''It wasn't that bad before, but the police made it worse,'' said Gail Jackson, 38, a Sunday night park visitor from nearby East Walnut Hills.
Similar-sized police details are assigned to church festivals, says Lt. Mike Bolte of the Cincinnati Police Division's park unit. Riverfest demands 200 officers. Police say 1 percent of the crowd causes all the problems.
Protesters say that police officers are unfairly targeting blacks with the city's year-old noise ordinance - which says a person is in violation if noise emanating from a motor vehicle is plainly audible at a distance of 50 feet from the vehicle. The fine is $66.
Cincinnati attorney Kenneth Lawson, legal adviser to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, says protesters will, if necessary, use Eden Park as a battleground against the noise ordinance.
''If they continue to come through here, harassing people and giving out a bunch of tickets for loud noise, then we'll be in their face,'' Mr. Lawson said last Sunday night at Eden Park.
An Enquirer analysis of 578 noise ordinance citations written by Cincinnati police from May 1996 through early July shows that African-Americans did receive the vast majority of noise ordinance citations, 79 percent.
But Eden Park was not the area in which most violations occurred. Addresses on Corry, Vine and Linn streets were the most frequently listed, according to the Enquirer analysis. On a typical Sunday, about five cruisers in Eden Park are cited for loud car stereos, Lt. Bolte says.
Councilman Tyrone Yates, who proposed the noise ordinance, says the law is colorblind. One of four African-Americans on council when the law was enacted, he says that problems at the park on Sunday are minimal and that the vast majority of cruisers and visitors come to enjoy the park and the company of friends.
He's not happy that race has been introduced into the cruising equation but realizes how some people can make the connection.
''People just don't appreciate that you get all kinds of unique behaviors when the economy in the inner city is wound as tightly as it is,'' Mr. Yates said. ''The community needs ways to release the stress of inner-city life. Candidly, I don't agree with it (cruising), but I understand it.''
Noise bothers neighbors
Don Nesbitt, 65, and his wife, Jeanne Kortekamp, 45, understand the differences in cultural expression. They are white, own a home in the 2200 block of Park Avenue and are parents of an adopted, biracial 13-year-old son.
''I'm at a loss. I don't know what it is I want to ask for,'' Ms. Kortekamp said Sunday evening while sitting on her porch. ''I don't want to ask that a group of people not be allowed to use the park. The park is there for everyone. If it were white people driving these cars and making this much noise, I'd still object.''
Cruising traffic often stops in front of their house when two drivers - going in opposite directions - stop to talk. Other neighbors have complained of smelling marijuana smoke, theft, vandalism and park visitors urinating on their lawns.
But Mr. Lawson has little compassion for Eden Park neighbors who complain about Sunday night noise.
''To me, if you move next to a railroad track, you should know once in a while, a train is going to come through,'' he said. ''If you move next to a park, you should expect noise.''
Enquirer reporter Julie Ralston contributed to this report.
PARK TRADITION EXTENDS ACROSS DECADES
AREA'S DIVERSITY INCREASES
