Hotel Bruce

Welcome to the Bruce blog—a weekly update on news, events and issues affecting life in Cleveland. Reporting as it happens on transit, development, planning, environment and arts & culture.

Basically, we write about creative ideas forming, talk to the people who have an inside track on the issues, and sometimes offer a commentary of our own. (For disclosure purposes, Bruce blog is a local, independent writer who also works part-time with nonprofit organization EcoCity Cleveland. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of EcoCity or any other organization).

It’s one thing to hear about it, another entirely to see the beginning of construction this week for the Detroit-Superior Bridge and its .64 mile pedestrian promenade, which will be festooned with public art and bike facilities (the public art is in the theme of measuring, i.e. wind gauges, vibration meters, sun dials). The crews were out last week breaking ground on the $2.6 million bridge makeover. The anticipated completion date is August 2004.

Meanwhile, the trucking interests in The Flats made a last ditch effort to shanghai the project. Reportedly, PR flak Jim Cox showed up late (after the public comment period ended) at last week’s Cleveland Planning Commission meeting, to complain about the project once again. According to an attendee of the meeting, Cox said the project did not deliver on its promised bike lane (it’s going to have a bike route along its five foot shoulder). This after Cox was the primary voice to have the bike lanes removed from the bridge. According to the source at the meeting, commission chair Tony Coyne cut Cox off and told him where he could submit his comments.

Apparently, Cox didn’t limit his ire to the Detroit-Superior Bridge project. He also tried to lay into the Planning Commission about unanimously adopting bike design guidelines for the city of Cleveland, which are based on the city of Chicago’s bike design guidelines.

According to our source, Cox came off sounding half-cocked when insisting that Chicago’s guidelines are ‘not national best practices’ even though they are based on AASHTO approved guidelines as well as that city’s planning department.

Aside from Cox’s opinion, city planning officials are pleased as punch because now they have some local control in deciding how to implement bike lanes on city streets. The guidelines should help working through issues of bike lane versus bike route designation and questions of striping through intersections in the current battleground of Euclid Corridor because it removes the default-to-ODOT position that the city of Cleveland has held until now. Officials at city planning hope that the new design guidelines will be useful reinstating the bike lanes in the Euclid Corridor by the 90 percent design review.

For an organization that’s drowning in acronyms, sending a little TLC sounds pretty good to some community development advocates.

It's been said that transportation planning and economic development are synonymous in Northeast Ohio and that the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency(NOACA)—the region’s governing body that disburses federal transportation funds in Northeast Ohio—is often placed in a position of creating one size fits all strategies.

NOACA will try to alter that perception with the launch of Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) in 2005. TLC is a pot of money aimed at developing plans that make streets safer and more accommodating to cyclists and pedestrians. The program will begin accepting applications in June 2004. NOACA is committing $1 million to TLC, which will fund 80 percent of projects that are in the advanced planning stage (the projects need to pursue their own 20 percent match).

Basically, TLC will provide the gap financing for cities and community development corporations to hire transportation consultants such as bike facilities planners and traffic engineers needed to complete all planning documents.

The TLC acronym has been used in the past at NOACA, but, until now, it has been tied to traffic signal projects and turn lanes. At its recent Transportation Advisory Meeting, the group discussed putting the emphasis on “a multi-modal approach.” NOACA doesn’t have much of a track record of funding projects that directly address multi-modalism, perhaps because its thinking is dominated by traffic engineers who measure success by how well the roads function as traffic sewers. TLC is a baby step in the right direction.

It’s been a banner year for EcoCity Cleveland. Earlier this year, the organization received a $245,000 grant from the Gund Foundation as part of the effort to launch Greater Ohio, a statewide balanced-growth organizing campaign. And this week, the nonprofit group received word that the Joyce Foundation has approved a grant of $274,000 over two years for watershed-based planning work in the Lake Erie watershed. This is the largest single grant in EcoCity Cleveland’s history.

With this latest round of funding, EcoCity plans to build on the work it’s doing with the Ohio Lake Erie Commission, which is a state of Ohio sponsored effort that, among other things, offers incentives to municipalities which make land-use decisions with watershed health in mind. Specifically, the Lake Erie Balanced Growth program, which wrapped up its recommendations earlier this year, encourages growth in a regional context by selecting priority development areas while conserving prime open space such as riparian corridors and forests.

Part of the EcoCity project will be an extensive GIS mapping to provide the data analysis that will lead to decisions on development and conservation areas. In addition, the funds will bolster the grassroots Greater Ohio campaign with a high-level analysis of how state policies influence the location of growth and to support the implementation of local watershed plans.

The Cuyahoga Countryside Conservancy, a nonprofit working to save heritage farms and reestablish farmland around the Cuyahoga Valley, is launching a new farmer’s market. The group received zoning approval from Peninsula this week to have up to 35 vendors including artists, musicians and prepared food each Saturday at the corner of Rt. 303 and Riverview (on a heritage farm property). The first day of the market is June 19, and currently 15 farmers from the region are signed up to participate.

Local cycling advocates are trying to organize a Cleveland version of the national "Ride of Silence" scheduled for Wed., May, 19th at 7 pm. The ride was started last May in Dallas, TX a few weeks after the death of respected ultra cyclist, Larry Schwartz. With only a week's notice, more than 1,000 cyclists gathered for this ceremonial ride. It captured the attention of the entire Dallas community. This year, more than 21 cities have signed on to host a ride, including Columbus, OH. Email if you’re interested in learning more or getting involved.

Share your opinion of bike lanes in Euclid Corridor with ODOT
In February, ODOT District 12 staff objected to the Euclid Corridor's proposed design for bike lanes. More specifically, local ODOT officials didn't like a detail which ends the stripe for bike lane markings well back from each intersection whenever a "choice lane" exists (straight or right turn allowed). It was the reason stated for pulling the lanes from the project. As of April 19, ODOT still has not decided, so the letter writing campaign continues.

Cycling advocates responded by pointing to an option in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials guide which was absent from ODOT's manual. The advocates’ move was seen as instrumental in getting ODOT to retreat from its position, even though the lanes are not yet back in the design.

If you want to see bike lanes included in the Euclid Corridor project, consider writing a letter to the director of ODOT District 12 and copying Mayor Campbell (addresses below).

Cycling advocates note that the City of Cleveland is actively defending the bike lanes, and that RTA is at least neutral (simply want to keep the project moving forward). ODOT officials are the only ones who have advocated the removal of bike lanes from the Euclid Corridor.

Send letters to:

David J. Coyle
Director, ODOT District 12
5500 Transportation Blvd
Garfield Hts, OH 44125