On January 23, 2009, the Cleveland Planning Commission approved with accommodation the Train Avenue Greenway Plan. It’s the latest piece in re-envisioning a green Flats District.

Train Avenue is a prime example of Cleveland morphing into a more sustainable city without erasing its urban, industrial roots. The plan is to build a 2.5 mile bike path and greenway that starts at W. 65th Street and winds its way east to the Cuyahoga River to meet up with the Towpath Trail in the Industrial Flats (near Tremont).

Train Avenue is an industrial road on the Near West Side, and the path will allow visitors arriving by Towpath to glimpse Cleveland, past and present, at work. A tributary known as Walworth Run was once stained red as it flowed into the Cuyahoga, but now stays hidden in a pipe below Train Avenue. This was the city’s livestock yards where butchers slaughtered animals and prepared meat before the age of refrigerated trains and trucks (locally owned Blue Ribbon Meats is still nearby).

Oriented between a freight rail line and the road, the project seeks to replace rivulets of red with green: Rain gardens will be planted along the trail to absorb stormwater. A new high school to be built just up the hill from Train could be involved in building the gardens. An infamous graffiti wall here could be transformed into the site of an aerosol art workshop.

One area where the plan stands to improve is public art. For example, a partnership with Great Lakes Theatre Company, which has a set storage facility on Train, might benefit both the greenway’s public art and the theatre.

The greenway’s estimated cost is $2.6 million, which includes a trail spur on W. 53rd Street connecting into Zone Recreation Center. Bordered by W. 53rd and W. 65th along Lorain Avenue, Zone Rec is also proposing on a outdoor sustainability education program where kids will get hands-on training building rain gardens. Rain gardens could absorb 12,000 gallons of stormwater on 23 acres of open space, said Cleveland Councilman Matt Zone.

The next generation of Clevelanders is already being educated about green infrastructure: At the Cleveland Conserves campaign kick-off later that morning at City Hall, a Cleveland elementary school class gave a Powerpoint presentation on “Greening our Water.”

Train Avenue could be a testing ground for the emerging science of distributed stormwater management. The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District applied for a Coastal Management Assistance Grant to conduct a feasibility study as part of the Train Avenue Greenway. They hope to gain engineering analysis necessary to quantify the benefits of distributed green infrastructure stormwater practices on the flooding, erosion, and water quality problems facing the Walworth Run, Cuyahoga River, and Lake Erie, says the Sewer District's Linda Mack.

"Green infrastructure has the potential to improve more than the aesthetics of our region. A feasibility study in Fayetteville, Ark. concluded that if the tree canopy was increased from 27% to 40% they could realize a reduction of stormwater runoff by 31% and more than $40 million in capital improvement savings for stormwater infrastructure."

Train Avenue is one of a handful of similar greenways which the city and county would like to see (or are in the process of building) to attract visitors from the Towpath into the neighborhoods. City planners hope Train will follow suit—from this final plan to engineering and construction—like the recently completed Treadway Creek bike/greenway connecting the Towpath to Old Brooklyn, or the 3-mile bike path being built along Broadview Road as part of the West Creek Reservation trail system, or the Big Creek trail now being planned to connect the Zoo to the Towpath.

Finding funding to build bike trails is a challenge that may delay the Train Avenue greenway. Even though Train only requires the city to purchase one parcel of land, funds like the Clean Ohio Fund for open space, which voters reauthorized in November, go toward purchasing land, not building trails. (There is a $5 million Clean Ohio fund for trails split over four years, but it has to be shared statewide). Cleveland Planner George Cantor says more urban trails and greenways would get built if Congress reauthorizes a $50 million (per city) bike/pedestrian pilot program in the Transportation Bill, which includes a proposal from Cleveland.

“(Train Avenue Greenway) isn’t shovel ready, but it could be very quickly,” Cantor said.

See the Train Avenue Trail & Greenway Master Plan.