The Euclid Corridor bike lanes, officially opened over the weekend, are the beginning of a new bike network for Cleveland that will connect the city to its suburbs and its residents to what will someday be the crown jewel of an urban recreation network that includes Dike 14 and Whiskey Island, a Lakefront bike trail, and the Cuyahoga River Valley’s Towpath Trail. It delivers on a vision that cities can redesign themselves to be more accommodating to many forms of transportation.

Euclid Avenue's new Bus-Rapid line delivers cleaner, faster public transit service between Downtown, Midtown, University Circle and East Cleveland. Bike lanes in the corridor provide a safe, predictable, and a better design for vehicles moving at different speeds. It's a real improvement to those of us who choose to cycle to a destination in town.

The video (above) is from the Oct. 25, 2008 ‘inner tube’ cutting ceremony for Cleveland's first bike lanes. To see more images from the bike lane opening, click here.

Location(s)

Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson joins the Ohio City Bicycle Co-op, Cleveland Bikes and the Regional Transit Authority in inviting Clevelanders to cut the ribbon and open the Euclid Corridor bike lanes on Saturday, October 25th at 11:00 a.m. on Euclid Avenue at East 24th Street.

The Ohio City Bike Co-Op’s Saturday Oct. 25 social ride will make the grand opening its destination. If you would like to participate in the 2-mile bike ride to the ribbon cutting, it leaves the co-op at 10:30 a.m., and returns at noon.

The Co-op can lend you a bike and helmet if you need them, and even some hats and gloves. Call 216-830-2667 or email Jim Sheehan sheehan.jim@gmail.com

•The grand opening of the Euclid Corridor—don’t you think it looks like Portland or a European city?—unveils the city’s first commuter bike lanes from Downtown to University Circle and back. Show your support— join the Ohio City Bike Co-op’s Saturday Social Ride to the ribbon cutting ceremony headlined by Mayor Frank Jackson at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 25 at Euclid and E. 24th Street.

•Making Cleveland a “Bicycle Friendly Community” is part of a larger initiative to promote active living and to improve the health of Clevelanders, while creating a more sustainable environment for future generations. The city could be in an even better position to accelerate progress on its Bike Plan if national bike advocacy group Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is successful leading the effort to get $50 million each for nine cities to fund bike facilities and education. The group will announce on Monday that Cleveland is one of its featured cities for non-motorized projects in the next federal transportation bill based largely on the strength of our 2010 Transportation Plan. Cleveland’s $13 million, 5-year bike plan dovetails nicely with the goals of the federal pilot projects to increase healthy activity, particularly in lower income areas, and the 25% of Clevelanders who don’t own a car and travel by bus, bike or RTA.

Location(s)

First of weekly brown bag lunch discussions focuses on the implementation of Cleveland State’s innovative master plan. For the lead-off talk, Jack Baumann of Braun and Steidl will discuss the new CSU Student Center, which his firm is working on in collaboration with Gwathmey Siegel.

• The Cuyahoga Valley Initiative (CVI) created a roadmap to reinvent the river valley by attracting environmentally minded industry. Leading the way is CLEERTEC’s green bulkhead project, an environmental restoration project that would improve the conditions for aquatic life in the industrial shipping channel of the lower Cuyahoga River. Get an update here.

• Paul Oyaski, director of Cuyahoga County’s Department of Development and member of the county’s energy task force studying wind power on Lake Erie, emailed this photo from his family’s summer vacation in Canada. It’s of Erie Shores Wind Farm, which is 66 turbines powering thousands of homes in southern Ontario. They cost about $2.5 million each and were part of a government-initiated renewable energy strategy.

• Lou Bleier wonders why a German company was hired to work on the Lake Erie Wind Turbine Project. “I'm not against using global resources,” he writes, “however, with the dollar dropping and the Euro rising, I find it hard to believe it’s a good value." This Texas company successfully completed an off-shore installation of seven wind turbines in the Irish Sea in 2003, he adds. "I think that model would be perfect for a stage one in Lake Erie."
• The National Surface Transportation and Revenue Study Commission released its report to Congress last week.
  
  

Interior perspective of the upper floors of the proposed new office tower at E. 9th and Prospect as part of K&D Group's proposal for the former Ameritrust complex

After more than thirty years of sitting vacant, the Ameritrust tower and complex will once again be a center of commerce. That is, if Cuyahoga County accepts the redevelopment proposal from Doug Price and Bob Corna, principals of the K&D Group.

Cuyahoga County, which started an open bid process for the complex after determining they would not have the finances to consolidate its administrative offices there, unsealed the single bid—$35,005,000 from the K&D Group –earlier today.

Read more.