After more than a year since its last meeting, Mayor Jackson’s Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee had a long list of progress to report this week.

At the top of the list is the city’s 2010 Active Transportation Plan, which builds off the city’s official bike plan. The 2010 plan is actually a pitch to include Cleveland as one of 40 cities that would receive $50 million each for biking and walking projects. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy set those targets for next year’s transportation bill, specifically, for round two of the non-motorized pilot projects (the first round secured $25 million to four cities each in 2005).

With the Highway Trust Fund facing a shortfall, it’s no guarantee that will be funded, said John Motl from ODOT. Advocates of more bike-able and walkable cities countered that $2 billion out of the $280 billion, five-year federal transportation bill is a small but smart investment.

How would Cleveland spend $50 million to improve conditions for biking and walking?

In general, it would help the city make significant progress toward its goal of placing a bike trail, path or route within 10 minutes of every resident. Cleveland could complete more than a dozen projects that fall within a network of “spokes and loops.”

At the center of the Cleveland bike network is the Towpath Trail, which acts as a spine running from Akron north to the Cleveland Flats. The spokes radiating from the Towpath include connector trails into the neighborhoods like Tremont, Slavic Village, and Old Brooklyn. Parma, Seven Hills, Lakewood, University Circle and neighborhoods along the lakeshore get into the act with connecting spokes like the West Creek Trail. Seven million of the pilot project dollars would help complete an Inner Emerald Necklace loop that would circumnavigate the county and serve as a mode of transportation to parks and destinations like the lakefront and downtown, says Martin Cader of the Cleveland Planning Commission.

Meanwhile, the city and one of the area’s largest health providers are tapping state funds and private foundations for programs like Safe Routes to School—which focuses on improving conditions and building skills for children to ride a bike or walk to school.

In June, the Cleveland Health Department began a Safe Routes to School program with a $289,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation. In the vicinity of three Cleveland schools—Louisa-May Alcott, Willow and Stockyard Community schools—the city is adding “countdown” crossing signals, sidewalks and curbed ramps, more aggressive traffic control, bike training courses led by Ohio City Bike Co-op, walkability audits and support for a “walking school bus” program.

In addition, The Rainbow Babies and Children Hospital (University Hospitals) received a Safe Routes to School grant in 2008 and started similar programs and infrastructure work around four Cleveland schools—Scranton, Dunbar, Clark and Walton.

The city would expand the Safe Routes to School program with at least $1 million from the $50 million wish list that would improve conditions at 10 to 12 schools. It would also focus $1 million on bike parking. The city has already committed $240,000 in its five-year capital plan to build a downtown bike parking station.

Cleveland has staff working on a design and budget for the bike station in the groundfloor space of a parking garage near E. 4th Street in the Gateway District, says Eric Wobser, a special assistant to Ken Silliman, Mayor Frank Jackson's chief of staff. Wobser is working on a business plan that may include a private operator and selling naming rights to subsidize the cost of bike parking to the public. Bike rental, a small repair shop, valet service and locker space inside are being considered.

“The city’s architects are getting approval for engineering work—figuring out, are there any issues to get utilities to the space?” Wobser says. “As soon as we get that in hand, the city will design the space, in house, this fall and bid it out for construction in the spring of 2009.”

It might not be the city’s only bike parking station. Cleveland State University and RTA are looking at the possibility of a bike parking station at the planned East Side Transit Station (E. 21st Street and Prospect Avenue). And University Circle, Inc. is currently looking at the potential for a bike station in the University Arts and Retail District.

“Potentially, we could have three bike parking stations in the Euclid Corridor,” Cader says.

Investing in bike infrastructure responds to the impact of high gas prices and anticipates a resurgent bike riding movement. Surveys conducted this year by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency at 100 locations show that bike ridership in our five-county region is up across the board.

“Some of them were way up,” says Sally Hanley, bike coordinator for NOACA.

Renewed interest in cycling and a rising chorus of people who want to ride from home to their favorite destinations has led to a number of new trail building projects. One of the more exciting trails being planned is the Lake to Lake Trail. The goal is to link up the Harrison-Dillard Bikeway—a 3-mile trail that runs from the shores of Lake Erie through Rockefeller Park along MLK Drive—to Shaker Lakes and other points south and east. It would go a long way toward better connecting the eastern suburbs with University Circle.

The trail weaves together a number of planning initiatives, starting with the elimination of the ‘suicide’ traffic circle at E. 105th Street and MLK. Plans call for creating a proper intersection that should vastly improve the ability of cyclists, pedestrians and cars to safely share the road. University Circle, Inc. is also planning improvements to the Harrison-Dillard Bikeway on the other side of MLK (behind the art museum) and new transit waiting environments.

The Lake-to-Lake Trail will benefit from a number of other improvements where it connects to the street grid. For example, improved intersections at Euclid Avenue, and at Carnegie and Cedar (by the Rapid station) will make it a straight, clear shot to pick up the trail on Stokes (which runs through the grassy median in front of the Children’s Museum and the Cleveland School of the Arts).

But, the biggest improvement will be a new trail system heading up the hill. A trail will be built along MLK (under the rail bridge) that will connect with an improved trail through Ambler Park and with a new section of bike trail along the north side of Fairhill (across from the Baldwin Water Treatment plant) to the top of the hill by the old Kaiser site. There, a new intersection at MLK and Fairhill Road would improve safety, and two new trails will offer continuous service to Shaker and to Cleveland. A trail heading east will continue along Fairhill to the border of Shaker, and a new trail spur will be built along MLK (at the eastern edge of the Baldwin property) heading south to Shaker Boulevard and the new St. Luke’s Point LEED-ND development. The city of Shaker Heights has indicated it will build a trail extension along Fairhill Road—from North Moreland to Coventry Road and North Park Boulevard, the entrance to the Lower Shaker Lakes Trail.

“The city has $488,000 in our capital budget to start the project,” says Cader. “We’re still waiting to get estimates on what it will cost to build the trail.”

Other notable updates from the bike/ped advisory committee:

Lois Moss from Walk + Roll reported that, through their advocacy and fundraising effort, a few Cleveland police will patrol city streets on bikes in the 1st and 3rd District (a positive change of policy!)

A “Share the Road” weekend is planned for September 20-21. Activities include:

• Bike the Sparx Gallery Hop
• Phoenix Coffee and a crew of bike messengers will print 250 Share the Road signs and post them along the Sparx route and along a 10-mile route through University Circle, downtown and Tremont.
• Rainbow Babies is having a rally for two cyclists who have collected money for children’s cancer project. The cyclists will be riding from Vermillion to University Circle on Sept. 21 with a rally at noon.
• The family of Miles Coburn is organizing a memorial ride on Sunday, Sept. 21

Ohio Canal Corridor recently launched a Canal Basin Park District Plan and held a public meeting and input session with cycling advocates on the best way to connect the Towpath Trail to the Flats. During the latter, a network of multi-use trails right at the river’s edge as it oxbows from Canal Basin Park to the Lake and downriver to the steel mill was discussed.

See the Lake-to-Lake Trail presentation.