On February 23rd ODOT and the City Planning Department held a public meeting to discuss the latest updates on Lakefront West—a project that is supposed to finally mesh the West Side’s lakefront back into the city fabric. The project’s design began years ago, and has slowed, backtracked, and nearly come to a halt, but it finally appears that with the first Environmental Impact Statement draft due in mere weeks, that shovels will be in the ground by mid-2010.

Here at GCBL we have pressed ODOT hard over the Innerbelt, the Euclid Corridor, etc. for years now, so at the risk of harping on the negative so as to solidify us as “the others” in the eyes of State Transportation, the positives of the project come first:

• The presence of a multi-purpose path: There will be 3.9 miles of bike and pedestrian access mostly running adjacent to the Shoreway. The path, according to ODOT project director Craig Hebebrand, “closes the gap between bike lanes ending on the Detroit-Superior Bridge and those that connect to W. 65th”. Heading west, the path will begin on the north side of W. 25th, continue up to W. 49th and then split: with the northern path dead-ending near Division Ave, and the southern path connecting—in a roundabout way—to the Edgewater park entrance near W. Blvd. Now, before you say this eerily similar to what ODOT won’t do on the Innerbelt, there are some caveats. Specifically, in response to questioning, Hebebrand stated that the paths cannot and will not happen until the city of Cleveland gets concession from state legislature to turn the Shoreway (55mph) into a Byway (35mph). When (or if) this happens, paths will then be placed 10 to 15ft away from the byway as per federal regulations.

• Sustainable design: City Architecture—the lead design firm on the project—is incorporating bioretention swells into the park schematics as an attempt to naturally filter run-off from the roadway. In addition, the plan calls for vegetating parts of Edgewater with no-mow seeding as well as using natural barricades along the westernmost edge of the park's path as an attempt to address past safety issues that came with sand-covered bikeways. Also, greenspace is to be added at strategic points along the whole of the project, including greening the Shoreway median and removing the majority of Cass Ave. to create one continuous stretch of sloped land that will serve as a sledding hill.

• Place-making: In speaking to the public, Planning Director Bob Brown stated that “the beach and the park are meant to be recreational and pleasant experiences”. Consequently, in the course of design, Brown stated that there was a strong intent to instill a sense of place. At least conceptually, City Architecture does this with appreciable effort. For example, the design involves trellised retaining walls that soften the W. 76th pedestrian underpass; several key lookout points—including a new pause point at W. 45th along the path—that serve to tie the observer to the lake view; and the opening up of the W. 76th pedestrian tunnel so that natural air and light penetrates the underpass to make it a less dark, if not foreboding, experience.

Yet while there are plusses to the project, the negatives nevertheless are real, and include not just a watering down of the project’s essence: to create access to the waterfront, but—more generally—include flaws in the way decisions are made in the implementation of sound urban design. But before extrapolating on the brokenness of the process, it is first necessary to describe the extent lakefront access has been designed down.

The Lakefront West project was an adaptation of the 2004 study Connecting Cleveland, a city-adopted waterfront plan that included—among other things—a lakeside golf course downtown, and an island that dubbed as both a relocated port and a beach habitat. Yet what appeared grand in some respects made beautiful, common sense in others, as part of the project meant converting the West Shoreway into a tree-lined boulevard complete with several north-south connections that’d web the Lake with the Near West Side. Connections either entailed: underpasses beneath the Norfolk and Southern rail line (at W. 76th, 73rd, and 65th), at-grade intersections with what would become a byway (W. 73rd, W. 65th, 54th, 45th, and 28th), and a pedestrian bridge at W. 49th. In short, what was being proposed was a complete sieving through of the manmade barriers that have come to dominate our lakefront, complete with streetscapes along each north-south connection as a way to (you ready for this) expand the waterfront from the lake’s edge as opposed to shrinking it behind fences, railroads, rock piles, and cars.

The current proposal does not do this (see Image). While it beautifies existing underpasses, the only two appreciable new connections kept from the original design include the 73rd underpass and—one supposes—a new right-in, right-out intersection at W 54th and Division (how this is essentially different from an exit/entry ramp let me know, I’m all ears). Additionally, one could argue that the multi-use connection at W. 49th counts, but this is clearly not the pedestrian overpass that the original plan conceived. Anyway, what we have are a few new access points for cars (including a new road connecting the newly extended W. 73rd), but the breakpoints to the water remain essentially unchanged.

Why? Well, while money was a concern, the removal of the at-grade crossings had to deal mostly with ODOT’s traffic analysis data. In short, although the 35 mph would only add 90 or so seconds to the driver’s commute, the addition of stoplights and/or stop signs at each of the propose crossings apparently sent ODOT’s computers into the red, and thus the traffic engineers with them. This, though, is troubling for a number of reasons. First, there are some concerns from people in the know that ODOT isn’t operating with the most up-to-date traffic modeling equipment, and so there’s a good chance that the plan is being scaled down without reason. Second, as Director Brown noted in the public meeting, I-90 isn’t quite operating at excess capacity each morning, and one wonders if this variable was accounted for in the modeling process. Third, have you ever driven down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago?—you know, the city with 3.5 million people that has a stretch much like the one under question that is sequenced by traffic lights, and seems to operating without initiating the Windy City’s implosion…(Note: For a further description of the removal of the at-grade intersections click here to read subcommittee meeting notes from December of 2008).  

In general, Joe Public agreed. For example, at the end of the presentation there was a Q&A with reps from City Architecture, Director Brown, and Mr. Hebebrand taking questions. A local got up, said: “There are some good things here but it is troubling…I have been coming to the meetings since 2006, and the whole project is now being directed by traffic studies…and this is proof that there is something wrong with the way our cities are getting funded…because as long as cities like Cleveland are being subjected to these rules…cities are going to die. Columbus has got to know that it is hurting our cities…”

But all is not lost, because while there was silence from members of ODOT, Director Brown said the plans are tentative, and there are possibilities still. Another front anyone?