The 2019 Transportation group revisited its priorities, celebrated progress and discussed how to broaden its impact when it met this week. Half of the meeting was devoted to a ‘visioning’ exercise where the group responded to the question, “it’s Dec. 2019 and the media asks you, ‘what has this group accomplished in sustainable transportation in the last ten years?’”

Small groups brainstormed and then the larger group voted for their favorites among the long list of ‘accomplishments’. Top vote getters are:

• We adopted ‘complete streets’ legislation and incorporate it in every road project
• We’ve completed the Towpath Trail and the Cleveland neighborhood connectors
• We have predictable transit funding from the federal government
• We increased ‘mode shift’ – more transit riders and transportation cyclists

“The next meeting we’ll talk about metrics,” said Mike Neundorfer, president of Neundorfer Particulate Knowledge and co-convener of the group. “We should link with the Metrics group that came out of the 2019 summit. And among us we should divide into smaller groups and work on developing metrics.”

Projects updates followed the visioning session. They are:

Improving the performance of Euclid Corridor as a Complete Street

Kevin Schmotzer at the city’s Department of Economic Development, offered that some of the recent changes to the timing of traffic lights on Euclid Corridor are due to construction. “Many have come from east-west route changes and from RTA drivers, but if you have specific intersections of concern, flag them.”

Brad Chase at GreenCityBlueLake Institute and chair of RTA Citizens’ Advisory Board, said the larger concern is keeping the line of communication open between the city, RTA and other stakeholders to help achieve the promised 20 minute travel time from Public Square to East Cleveland.

“How do we have better communications between groups in corridor, and how do we define a Complete Street corridor?” Chase said. “This is supposed to be a bus, pedestrian and bike priority corridor. If we want to get this (complete streets) working around the city, we have to get it right here first.”

Action item: Chase and John Mitterholzer, program officer at Gund Foundation and a 2019 Transportation group co-convener, will work on a meeting with the stakeholders along the corridor with the goal of establishing a “better communication protocol on changes” that have lengthened the 20 minute trip time for the HealthLine bus-rapid transit line.

3-C passenger rail

Legislators need to hear the urgency from supporters of the 3-C, said Devan Willemsen, Director of Air & Land Use Special Projects at the Ohio Environmental Council. Ohio has $400 million promised from the federal government for high speed rail, but it has not been committed by the state. “It’s turning into a bit of a governor’s race issue. Some people are calling multi-modalism a passing fad. The controlling board for 3-C need to let legislators, specifically Bill Harris, know to get this going.”

Mitterholzer added that many are not aware that the federally designated high-speed rail corridors will continue to receive funding, up to $1 billion over next few years. “If we turn down this money, we’re done with rail in this state for the next decade. We’re the only state considering turning down the federal money.”

Action item: Willemsen said supporters of the 3-C can let their legislators know how they feel using this web site http://www.linkingohio.com/

Federal funding for multi-modal projects

Transportation legislation has been introduced in the Senate, after the House passed its version. Supporters of multimodal and active transportation can sign up for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy email alerts, said RTC Ohio director Rhonda Border-Boose. “Talk about predictable, federal funding – this is it,” she said.

Action item: “We need senate support – specifically Sen. Voinovich," Border-Boose said. 'We would like a ‘show Congress’ event, to tour Voinovich around where the alternative transportation dollars are being spent. Right now we need letters to legislators."

Multi-purpose path on the Innerbelt Bridge

Governor Strickland said he’d like ODOT to look again at the feasibility of a bike and pedestrian path on the new Innerbelt Bridge. “He has a couple of important caveats, on cost and safety that we plan to address,” said ClevelandBikes volunteer Kevin Cronin. “We deeply appreciate the step the governor took, and Senator Brown’s letter. It’s a testament to the individuals who sent letters to local and federal leaders. We’re not out of woods yet, but we’re making progress.”

The group rounded out the meeting discussing new roles to sharpen implementation. A coordinator that works with the city, a liaison to other 2019 groups, a strategic plan coordinator, and an executive committee for the group were some of the positions identified for further discussion.

In its wants and needs category, the group identified the following:

• Can we convince the city that our priorities are their priorities?
• What’s our role from 2019?
• Identifying right minority reps.
• Sufficient focus.
• Subcommittee structure.
• ID short term goals to expand the scope of the group.
• Think bigger for action items – to gain traction, go for something substantial.
• Keep track of accomplishments done (quantify and capture).
• A complete streets group
• Focus, don’t want to get spread too thin.
• Buy in from local politicians.
• Clearer vision of responsibilities, what power do we have to make the changes?
• Be clear communicating to the public.
• Need more attention to what is our authority and use our networks to get more attention to our projects.
• And how drive issue home through channels that we know.