The 2019 Sustainable Transportation Action Team held a well-organized meeting yesterday. The group—a cross section of cycling advocates, environmental groups, urban planners and staff from the city of Cleveland, NOACA and ODOT—is focused on advocacy, policy, and improving the performance of current infrastructure. It has identified short, mid and long-range goals.

Sub-groups reported progress toward their mission of developing a sustainable transportation system in Ohio (The goal is to make it truly ‘multi-modal’. That means, bringing the way we design and build streets and highways in tune with the needs of young and old, firm and infirm, and for all modes of mobility—cars, buses, cycling and walking).

Areas of focus and progress include:

The multi-use path on the Innerbelt Bridge As a direct result of the 2019 Transportation group and the Access for All advocacy campaign, ODOT continues to improve its proposed alternative to a bike/ped path on the bridge, ClevelandBikes president, Kevin Cronin reported.

ODOT’s first concession was to widen and add a bike lane on Abbey Avenue; More recently, they offered to extend the bike lane to the W. 25th Rapid station, turn W. 20th into a one-way connector to Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, and extend the bike lanes through the Ontario intersection by Progressive Field.

“Until we started pushing, they (ODOT) didn’t have alternatives like this,” Cronin said.

The big news was the City of Cleveland last week accepted that a cycling alternative should be included as part of an alternative bid process for the bridge, Cronin said, thanking the advocacy group and leadership from the Cleveland Planning Commission, which passed a resolution of support last week calling on ODOT to write into its bid language that design teams should consider a multi-modal path on the bridge.

The Planning Commission’s resolution is the mayor’s and the city’s official position, said Cleveland Planning staffer, Martin Cader, referring to a conversation he had with Mayor Jackson’s Chief of Staff, Ken Silliman.

“The (2019) group can work to expand the coalition,” Cronin added. “If people feel they have networks that can amplify the message of getting a multi-use path on the bridge, we welcome them to write letters of support to bridge@greencitybluelake.org (for talking points, see gcbl.org/innerbelt). The group has also developed a Powerpoint ‘roadshow’ that can be used to present to businesses or organizations who may be interested in endorsing the path.

(As an aside, on Friday, January 29th WCPN Sound of Ideas show will focus on the Innerbelt Bridge. Based on host Dan Moulthrop’s recent interview with ODOT regional director Bonnie Teeuwen, it is likely the bike/ped path on the bridge will be discussed).

Complete Streets The group researched best practices, and agreed Seattle’s ordinance is a model. Columbus, Ohio also recently passed a Complete Streets ordinance. The group will reach out to key members of city council and in Mayor Jackson’s administration, which is currently considering Complete Streets legislation.

The Euclid Corridor Bus-Rapid Transit (Healthline) The Healthline is not operating at maximum efficiency—it doesn’t deliver a rider from Public Square to University Circle in 20 minutes as promised. On the bright side, officials at RTA, the city and the 2019 group have identified solutions—the street’s new, automated signals have capacity to improve traffic flow, but need fine tuning. Accountability needs to be worked into the system for fixing problems (for more information, see page 2 of this document).  “Any help this group can give determining if the meeting with (city Sustainability Chief Andrew Watterson) and the traffic engineer has happened…this is an international model for BRT, and a lot of attention is on Cleveland to get it right” said GreenCityBlueLake’s Brad Chase, who has been working to identify solutions. “We would like to develop the kind of energy we have around the Innerbelt focused on this issue. Can we get businesses and employees talking about this not working the way it’s supposed to?”

Dale Schmid at Turner Logistics recounted a long line of questions and excitement at the recent national Green Build Conference about the Euclid Corridor BRT system.

David Beach, director of GreenCityBlueLake, added: “It may seem like this is a minor issue relating to traffic light timing, but the eyes of world are watching what’s going on with the BRT on Euclid. People in Washington were asking me about it recently. It’s really important that we can demonstrate that we can do a good job with this.”

Transportation Legislation Rails to Trails Conservancy met with Sen. Voinovich seeking support for their Active Transportation Plan, and need sustainability advocates to send letters of support to the Senator who is ‘looking for legacy projects’ before he retires. In the House, Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenaur is expected to champion the plan which calls for millions in innovative bike and pedestrian projects. “People can stay up to date by signing up for Rails to Trails email ‘action alerts’, said RTC Ohio director Rhonda Border-Boose. RTC has a letter that went out to Blumenaur that sums up the points of support.

Documents from the meeting

• Agenda
• Background information on the group's activities
• Attendance list