Like the heavy-metal grillwork on TV character Ugly Betty, the Cleveland Innerbelt Project will affix mega-tons of concrete and steel to the front door of the city. But will it improve the look of downtown Cleveland?

If we’re prepared to spend $1.5 billion on road infrastructure, we need to be equally prepared to design this once-in-a-lifetime investment in our city so that it improves the aesthetics of an already brutal inter-city roadway system and makes us feel better about Cleveland when we’re entering it.

Not much in the way of improving the aesthetics of the approach to downtown can be found in the current plan. Start with the design of the Innerbelt Trench. The Ohio Department of Transportation proposes to eliminate a greenway consisting of some pretty nice trees and a grassy slope along the length of the current trench. In its place, the agency want to form a barren marginal road built atop the concrete shoot in which traffic flows.

If you’ve ever driven the I-75 'canyon' in Lockland around Cincinnati, you can appreciate what ODOT wants to do: recycle a hideous 1950s-era highway design in Cleveland. The trench will be a squared off, ugly grey cliff that will only make the thought of stopping in downtown less inviting.

In Toledo, they’ve jettisoned that approach with the Maumee River Crossing Project, a $230 million new bridge along four miles of I-280, where conventional turf will be significantly reduced and replaced with native prairie grasses and wildflowers.

“1958 roadside landscaping connotes a region out of touch with modern green environmental approaches,” says John A. Blakeman of Meadow Environments, a Hudson-based landscape design company that worked on the Toledo project. “New interstates in Illinois, Wisconsin, and other Midwestern states have embraced enlightened natural roadside landscaping. It's time for that to occur in Northeast Ohio.”

Our highways could be refreshingly delightful natural corridors using appropriate native plant species in designs that emulate beautiful natural environments (see image)—which don't include the golf course motif, Blakeman adds.

“The problems with creating a modern landscape design on the I-280 project at Toledo were primarily those posed by the existing, antiquated, conventional landscaping specifications of ODOT,” says Blakeman. “For this project, we were able to get the governor’s office to cause ODOT to use updated specs and designs, discarding the on-the-books ones."

Replacing green with grey in the Innerbelt Plan will continue with the addition of a second I-90 bridge over the Flats. Squeezed between the existing bridge (which stays) and the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, this so-called signature bridge will harden the landscape between the highway and the city. Instead of one, elegant bridge, we’ll double the concrete and steel in this one-mile span, clutter the view of the river valley, and create an even wider dead zone in Tremont where the underpass casts a deep shadow and invites troubling behavior.

‘Citizen’ Ed Hauser calls the bridge plan “ODOT’s $2 billion boondoggle.” After Cuyahoga County Planning Commission Director Paul Alsenas’ inspiring single-bridge southern alignment idea was shot down, debate whether we want or need to add a second bridge was pushed aside. Consider this: it takes 85,000 tons of concrete aggregates to construct one mile of an interstate highway. What if we placed 85,000 native plants under the bridge to clean the soil and beautify Irishtown Bend in the Flats instead?

The underpass is already a sore spot with the current bridge—it is three football fields wide, dark, strewn with old tires and tagged with graffiti and it's a barrier between Tremont and Ohio City for those interested in walking or cycling. The solution is to create one signature bridge with downtown ramps and a bike/pedestrian path. Barring that, tap into Tremont’s arts community to design an exciting space under the bridge.

Tremont resident Glenn Murray is advocating for a budget set aside, perhaps through the city’s Percent for Art legislation, to pay for a cool underpass that will attract people and enhance neighborhood connections.

“We want an effort to engage the community to reconfigure what will be six football fields of space under the bridge,” Murray told the Cleveland Planning Commission on January 19, 2007. “If properly lit and programmed, maybe with a trailhead from the Towpath, it can be much more vibrant.”

ODOT promises to look at urban design aesthetics with its Urban Design committee, which is slated to consist of members from the bridge design subcommittee. But, so far a citizen representative has not been invited to have a seat at the table—why?

Of course, GreenCityBlueLake has been advocating to take advantage of the investment in the Innerbelt Bridge for the benefit of 25% of Clevelanders without a car by building a safe and beautiful path for cyclists and pedestrians on the bridge. And, it will serve millions of people connecting to downtown from the extension of the Towpath Trail.

We can erase the myth that roads and concrete infrastructure are ugly, segregated pipelines for auto use only.

What other ways can we improve the look and feel of the Cleveland Innerbelt Project?

Add a comment. Or, leave a comment with ODOT here.