LAKEWOOD, Ohio --

and the city are collaborating on a streetscape program that will include the installation of bus shelters that incorporate a public art component and bike racks along Madison Avenue in the

neighborhood.

The idea is to beautify the area while encouraging the use of public transportation and bicycles.

“There is not a single bus shelter headed eastbound on Madison in the Birdtown neighborhood,” said Ian Andrews, executive director of LakewoodAlive. “Yet 40 percent of the people in that neighborhood don’t have access to a car.”

Putting bus shelters in place will encourage residents to use Regional Transit Authority buses already running long Madison Avenue that connect to the rapid station at West 117th Street and Madison Avenue, Andrews said.

“This is one of our oldest historic neighborhoods in the community,” Andrews said. “What we saw was 20 percent of the residents rely on public transportation. We need to encourage more people to connect to the red line at the rapid station. This is going to do that and beautify the neighborhood.”

LakewoodAlive, a nonprofit economic development corporation, and the city of Lakewood received a $27,000 grant from Charter One Bank that will allow for the purchase of two bus shelters, nine bike racks and numerous artistic signs to be placed along Madison Avenue. All of the items will include art elements that identify the area as Birdtown.

One of the new bus shelters will be on the north side of Madison Avenue at Ridgewood Avenue to service westbound traffic. The second bus shelter, to service eastbound commuters, will be at Madison and Quail avenues.

The new shelters will be clear and incorporate artwork by Lakewood artists Joe DeLuca and his wife, Sheila Weil. One of the shelters will feature what will appear to be stained glass birds of different colors in the walls of the shelter. The other shelter will feature text about birds and a drawing of a red bird visible in the clear Plexiglas panels of the bus shelter.

The new bike racks, three of which will be placed along Madison Avenue and six inside Madison Park, will incorporate images of birds and the word Birdtown.

“I think the importance of this is that through the signage, through the bus shelters, through the bike racks, there will be no mistaking that you are in the Birdtown area,” Lakewood city planner Jason Russell said. “Every piece has a unique Birdtown feel to it.”

LakewoodAlive and the city of Lakewood hope to install the bus shelters and the bike racks by the end of October. The shelter at Madison and Ridgewood will replace an old style shelter RTA plans to remove.

The installation of the bus shelters, bike racks and Birdtown signs will be followed next year by a repaving of Madison Avenue in 2014, Russell said.

The Birdtown neighborhood runs along Madison Avenue from W. 117th Street to Madison Park.