Outmigration to suburbs and counties beyond Cuyahoga has left the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, one of the area’s largest land holders, faced with once-proud congregations who struggle with aging infrastructure and stagnant, often declining, financial support. Many, including parishioners from Saint Ann and Saint Louis of Cleveland Heights and Christ the King and Saint Philomena of East Cleveland are exploring mergers in order to remain open.

How should the church best honor the memory but respond to realities of shifting demographics and a massive real estate portfolio? Read more.

The costs of sprawl and redundant infrastructure are too high to ignore, says Chris Warren, Cleveland’s Chief of Regional Development. Trends over the last decade show our region consumed 50% more land while population and wealth flattened out.

Regional leaders are taking an historic step to address these costs, but also boost regional competitiveness. The Northeast Ohio Mayors and (city) Managers Association meet this Thursday to review a report from Cleveland State University Levin College professor Tom Bier on the adaptability of the Twin Cities’ regional approach to economic development. They’re scheduled to vote on whether the time is right for collaboration and sharing. What do you think of regional planning to accelerate economic growth? Advanced Northeast Ohio asks.

Read about ‘What is regional tax base sharing?’ and more about the Mayor’s and Managers regionalism discussion.

Recognizing the city’s efforts to improve conditions for cyclists, Cleveland has been selected as a recipient of a Bicycle Friendly Community Honorable Mention from the League of American Bicyclists. Andy Clarke, the head of the League, will be in Cleveland next week to participate in Cleveland’s first Bicycle Week. Clarke will present Mayor Jackson with the Honorable Mention Award at the dedication of the Treadway Creek Trail on May 16th.

Treadway and the ongoing Towpath Trail extension to the Flats, a Bike Cleveland Plan, the $13 million commitment to bike infrastructure as part of the city’s capital budget, the soon-to-open bike lane on Euclid Avenue—all contribute to a hoped-for new culture of cycling in the area.

But, this recognition is a good opportunity to start a dialogue about what’s needed to make Cleveland a finalist in the Bicycle Friendly Community awards. How do we secure more bike and pedestrian facilities in Northeast Ohio? What changes do we need at the Ohio Department of Transportation and at NOACA (which directs $ billions in federal transportation spending) which should mandate that every local road construction project is a Complete Street?

• Cleveland has more in common with Eastern Europe than we assumed. Tremont residents Phil Pavarinni, Jr. and Ohio Citizen Action Cleveland Area Program Director Liz Ilg will meet with representatives from five different countries that all have a Mittal Steel plants as neighbors in Luxembourg on May 12, to plan for an international effort to get Mittal to clean up. They’re networking with CEE Bankwatch (Croatia), Environment Hamilton (Canada), GroundWork (South Africa), GARDE programme of Environmental Law Service (Czech Republic), Friends of the Earth Luxembourg, Karaganda EcoMuseum (Kazakhstan), National Ecological Center of Ukraine, Solidarity ArcelorMittal Poland, Steel Valley Crisis Committee (South Africa), and Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (South Africa).

  Ohio Citizen Action will release a documentary on Mittal Steel and Cleveland at the Museum of Contemporary Art (8501 Carnegie Ave.) on Friday June 6 at 7 pm.

  
  

• The “Toad-ily Frogs” exhibit opening this Friday at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History is part of the “Year of the Frog” initiative devoted to helping save amphibians from extinction.
• The success of the Towpath Trail will be determined by how many tendrils it sends into Cleveland neighborhoods. Four Near West neighborhoods—Tremont, Ohio City, Clark-Metro and Stockyards—look to repeat the new Treadway connector at Train Avenue, site of a buried tributary to the Cuyahoga River known as Walworth Run.
• We all live in a watershed—the land area draining into a river or lake. This weekend, be a steward of your watershed by joining the year’s biggest volunteer clean up effort: the 19th annual RiverSweep. As part of the upcoming Cleveland Bicycle Week, participants are encouraged to bike to the event.

Greater Ohio reports that it added staff to "monitor and present to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio as it develops rules to implement" a renewable portfolio standard. The group also reports that it played a role in upcoming legislation that deals with the siting of renewable energy generation, such as wind turbines:

May is a big bicycling month in Greater Cleveland. With plenty of rides, events and a big conference at the Cleveland Public Library on May 16, many expect an outcome of a stronger bike community that’s energized to help Cleveland accomplish its goal of becoming a Bicycle Friendly Community. Here are some of the highlights:

Mon May 5: Walk+Roll Benefit

At Pickwick & Frolic in the car-free East 4th Street District. The networking event will include bicycle riders who also happen to be some of Cleveland's change makers, movers and shakers. Meet people like Thomas Mulready of CoolCleveland.com, Dan Moulthrop of WCPN's The Sound of Ideas, Phillip Morris of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and lots of other interesting people Details + register

May 10-18: Cleveland Bicycle Week

Finally, a case when a business plan competition led to an sustainable business. Two years after five Case students took top honors with their virtual farmer’s market, Fresh Fork has 60 Northeast Ohio farmers and 40 Cleveland-area restaurants ready to buy and sell fresh, locally grown produce on its web site.

This active trend toward local foods—with scads of people declaring themselves ‘locavores’—makes Fresh Fork a viable concern.

Read more.

Busy, and exciting, times are just ahead for the Towpath Trail Partnership Committee, the group building out the northernmost five miles of the all-purpose trail which, one day, will connect Akron, Peninsula and downtown Cleveland.

After more than a year, Ohio Canal Corridor has figured out how to avoid the heavy metal barricades in the industrial Flats for Stage 1 of the Towpath Trail. The preferred route of this 1-mile section will wend from Harvard Road over the river and (practically) through the train tracks before rising 40 feet to meet the new trail at Steelyard Commons. The group unveils this engineering marvel at a June 17 public meeting.

"Besides the obvious environmental concerns, there are complicated engineering challenges led by a spiderweb of rail lines which must be crossed by going around, under or above," Ohio Canal Corridor (OCC) writes in its spring ’08 newsletter.

And, after missing its January deadline, the committee looks to hire a design consultant in April who will do it all over again—producing a preferred trail alignment for Stage 3, the 1-mile segment from Steelyard to Literary Avenue in Tremont. This time, they decided by extending the major trailhead a little further than below I-490 (at the intersection of W. 3rd and Quigley Avenue) to a small trailhead at Literary, a stage and an entire year will be shaved from the project.

Superhighways built for bikes, a whopping 30 percent pedal to work and the corner store instead of driving, $110 million invested annually in bike infrastructure and education—they're not only happy in Holland because of the coffeeshops, folks.

Thousands of tourists, like the authors of Bicycling magazine’s glowing June feature, flock to the tiny country for bike tours. This picture, of mid-sized city Groningen, is an inspiration—to begin retrofitting our cities' wide avenues and suburban streets to invite more biking as transportation. Oh, and one more factoid: Even out in Amsterdam’s ‘burbs, 37 percent of all trips are by bike.