Through a seven-year $28 million federal grant, St. Paul-based Transit for Livable Communities has funded at least 37 biking and walking projects across the Twin Cities since 2005. They range from the popular “Nice Ride” bicycle-sharing program to the new River Lake Greenway in Minneapolis, a five-mile “bicycle boulevard” extending along residential streets from the West River Parkway to Lake Harriet.

Many of those projects have been well received, but one is drawing critical attention in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood. The city’s efforts to turn all of Jefferson Avenue into St. Paul’s first bike boulevard have hit road bumps, with residents opposing plans to install a partial traffic block at Cleveland Avenue, among other bike-friendly flourishes.

City council member Pat Harris is among those who have criticized the proposed “Jefferson Avenue diverter” at Cleveland Avenue.

City officials will host a public meeting tonight seeking input on the Jefferson Avenue bicycle boulevard, which they now mostly refer to as a “bikeway,” as the original vision has been paired down. The proposed traffic diverter at Cleveland Avenue promises to be a touchy point of discussion, though the meeting will be a general progress report and information session on the entire project.

“There won’t be any discussion of design elements,” said Dave Hunt, a spokesman for St. Paul Public Works. “We’re going to look at the history of the project, context, next steps.”

The meeting will take place from 6 to 8:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Nativity School, 1900 Stanford Ave. A second meeting will take place Oct. 25 at the same time and location.

At the east end of the avenue, other parts of the $1 million bikeway already have come together. Jefferson Avenue has sprouted bike lanes, road markings and street signage from West Seventh Street to Snelling Avenue, but traffic-calming elements along the western portion of the avenue, from Snelling to Mississippi River Boulevard, have been put on hold as a result of public feedback. Proposed traffic circles, a median and signs declaring the route a bike boulevard all got nixed.

The original concept was that Jefferson Avenue, like the new River Lake Greenway in Minneapolis, would carry bikes, pedestrians and local residential traffic only. The Jefferson project was slated to use $750,000 from Transit for Livable Communities’ federal grant and $250,000 from the city, and it would become a centerpiece in what one day would become a citywide grid of bikeways, with bike-friendly routes running north and south and east and west every few blocks.

“It’s a real good through route, east-west, and you can really almost take it straight from the Mississippi River Boulevard to West Seventh,” said Emily Erickson, the city’s sustainable transportation planner.

The problem is that alone, bike-friendly flourishes also invite speedy drivers.

“You don’t want to create a street that, by making it better for bicyclists, also encourages cars to speed through it,” said Hilary Reeves, a spokeswoman for Transit for Livable Communities. “On a bike boulevard, you’ll take stop signs out so bikes don’t have to stop at every block. You can see if you’re a driver, you might say, ‘oh, I can go faster.’ ”

Some form of traffic-calming diversion gives drivers looking to zip across town incentive to seek alternate routes, Erickson said. Residents in the past already had raised concern about drivers using Jefferson as a quick shot across the city, and traffic-calming accomplishes “a lot of things the neighborhood had been asking for for a long time,” she said.

To that end, the city put a temporary diverter, or “test refuge,” in place from August to October last year. The traffic diverter mimicked a pair of pedestrian traffic islands that would block cars along Jefferson Avenue from crossing Cleveland or making left turns onto Cleveland. Drivers were forced to turn right.

Likewise, drivers along Cleveland Avenue were blocked from turning left onto Jefferson.

Results of the test have alienated homeowners near the avenue, such as Claire Bluhm, who believe a permanent diverter would complicate their commutes or force traffic onto side streets. In a rejoinder to Transit for Livable Communities, she and more than a dozen others opposed to the nonprofit’s traffic-calming measures have dubbed themselves Local Taxpayers for Livable Communities, or LTLC.

“When they put in the test median, I couldn’t believe they were actually going through with it, because there doesn’t seem (to be) a real need,” said Bluhm, a stay-at-home mom who lives on nearby Wellesley Avenue. “We chose to buy this house because it’s not a busy street….People used our alley as a thoroughfare.”

Bluhm and other members of LTLC have said that Transit for Livable Communities has come across heavy-handed. In discussions with the city, the nonprofit at times has threatened to block funding for a proposed $400,000 bicycle boulevard along Griggs Street if the diverter isn’t pushed through.

Reeves said the Transit for Livable Communities board met in August and agreed to “de-link” the two projects, so their fates are no longer entwined.

Reeves also said traffic counts taken last year showed the temporary Jefferson Avenue diverter accomplished its goals, causing drivers to slow down while keeping traffic on adjacent streets below 500 cars per day.