FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- After more than a year of planning and public input, Fairview Park officials, in collaboration with the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), have unveiled two recommendations regarding the future of the Lorain Road corridor.

The options were presented Thursday (July 25) at a meeting at the Gemini Center.

“First of all, we’re treating the core area of Lorain Road -- our downtown from West 210th Street to West 220th Street -- differently than how we’re looking at the rest of the corridor,” Fairview Park Director of Public Service Shawn Leininger said. “We recommend that we go to a single lane of traffic in each direction, with a center turn lane.

“The difference between the two options is one has parking on both sides of the road. The other retains parking on the north side, but then we have a bike lane on both sides of the road.”

The Lorain Road revitalization effort is being funded using an $80,000 NOACA Transportation for Livable Communities (TLCI) grant, which covered the cost of urban design firm MKSK.

Using public input gleaned from various workshops, the Columbus-based company’s Lorain Road plan also includes recommendations related to transportation, development and place making for the 4-mile thoroughfare that traverses the entire city.

“Staying within that downtown area, the consultant also gave us some suggestions on what we can do to help brand and identify it as being something unique and different from the rest of the corridor, using signage and marketing,” Leininger said.

The curb-to-curb redesign of Lorain Road also includes streetscape improvements and next steps for implementation. But it’s the notion of the busy street going from five lanes down to three that is bound to turn heads.

“We knew it was a concern from the city and also from the public when we started this project,” Leininger said. “That’s why we went through this study to understand if it’s feasible. What we found is that there’s about a 30-second increase in drive time through the entire corridor, starting at the east end in Cleveland and going to our west end border with North Olmsted.

“So the (lane reduction) is able to manage traffic effectively. Also, with some signal timing adjustments, the traffic signals could operate better than what they’re operating at right now.”

Because the Lorain Road recommendations are significant, the service director said the next step would be utilizing NOACA’s street supplies tool kit, which for a short amount of time would mark out the temporary single lanes using paint that washes off with weather and use.

As far as when residents could experience the Lorain Road project test layout -- let alone see the entire redevelopment become a reality -- Leininger said there are a few moving parts.

“Potentially, the test layout could be next year, but with a new administration coming in January, I don’t know,” Leininger said. “That will be up to them.

“Also, if after we test it we find it was deemed successful, then it would be put together with a resurfacing project of Lorain Road, which we’re still a number of years away. Overall, we’re always looking for ways we can improve our community.”

Those improvement also include streetscaping on Lorain Road, with the recently started $1 million project expected to be finished in late October.

“The streetscape is a completely different project; however, this Lorain Road corridor study did take it into consideration,” Leininger said. “As part of this streetscape project, we’re implementing some of those beautification efforts -- landscaping and trees creating a buffer from the street edge to the sidewalks -- to be more pedestrian friendly.”

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