CLEVELAND, Ohio - Projects to create protected bike lanes in Cleveland received a major boost Friday from the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency.

The board of the transportation planning agency announced at a meeting that it would allocate $47 million in federal transportation dollars to 21 projects including two that would create the first major protected bike lanes in the city.

NOACA allocated $8.3 million for construction planned 2020 by the city of the first leg of the Midway, which would extend 2.5 miles along the middle of Superior Avenue from Public Square to East 55th Street.

Envisioned by bike advocates, and developed with the help of the City of Cleveland and NOACA, the Midway would eventually constitute a system of "bicycle highways" running down the center lanes of more than 50 miles of wide, underused streets that once carried streetcars.

NOACA also allocated $6.1 million for the city's planned construction in 2022 of the proposed Lorain Avenue Cycle Track, which would run along the north side of the avenue between West 20th and West 45th Streets, and the south side from West 45th to West 65th.

Separate and safer

Protected lanes use curbs, landscaping or other barriers to separate bicyclists from traffic. Advocates consider such lanes - now catching on across the U.S. - as the safest way to get around cities on bikes.

The city is in the process of creating a short, low-cost protected lane on the Detroit Superior Bridge, with paint and slender bollards.

Within that context, proponents described Friday's funding package as a decisive and historic turn from years of planning to realization of a more ambitious bike system that includes extensive protected lanes.

"This is huge," said Barb Clint, a Midway backer who is a board member of Bike Cleveland, the city's leading advocacy group for cyclists, and manager of the Cleveland YMCA's Clevelanders in Motion initiative.

"Ultimately, this is a testament to the dedication and perseverance of a whole lot of people," said Tom McNair, executive director of the nonprofit Ohio City Inc. "This represents in my opinion a paradigm shift in transportation policy for the city of Cleveland."

The NOACA money would cover major chunks of the cost of the Midway and Lorain projects, but not the total. Nevertheless, the commitment would help leverage money from other sources, McNair, Clint and other advocates said.

Ecstatic over projects

"I'm ecstatic about it,'' said Ward 3 Councilman Kerry McCormack, whose district encompasses the Midway and the Lorain cycle track. "It means these projects are going to happen and we're actually going to move forward with this type of infrastructure."

Ward 15 Councilman Matt Zone, who also serves as president of the National League of Cities, said Cleveland is far behind cities with extensive protected bike lane systems, such as Portland, Oregon, Nashville and Indianapolis.

"We are just starting to catch up now," he said. "I appreciate the urgency that's starting to happen with thought leaders like [NOACA Director] Grace Gallucci and NOACA. Even mayor [Frank] Jackson is beginning to come around."

Freddy Collier, the city's planning director, wrote in an email that NOACA's "investments will mark a shift in how we think about and implement capital investments in Cleveland. The Jackson administration is committed to creating healthy, equitable, and sustainable transportation infrastructure."

Zone and McCormack both said benefits of the Midway and the Lorain Avenue Cycle Track would include economic development.

The Indy example

Such convictions, they said, are borne out by the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, an 8-mile loop around the center city that connects major attractions and job centers to trails that extend into surrounding neighborhoods.

Between 2008 and 2014, property values within a block of the Cultural Trail increased 148 percent, or $1 billion, according to a 2015 study by the Indiana University Public Policy Institute.

"I'm not going to predict what we're going to see in Cleveland," said McCormack, who recently visited the Indianapolis trail with a Cleveland delegation.

But he said: "Having roads in Cleveland that are 6, 7, or 8, lanes of asphalt and that from a traffic analysis perspective are dramatically underutilized - that's just not good for the city and our central business district."

Down payment on a vision

Gallucci, who was named director of NOACA in 2012, described the $47 million in allocations as a "down payment" on the planning agency's recently completed Long Range Plan, which identifies $15.8 billion in transportation projects between now and 2040.

In contrast to a major NOACA allocation earlier this year, which focused primarily on road projects, the latest round devotes $33.5 million to transit, bike and pedestrian-oriented projects or 71 percent of the total spending announced Friday.

Gallucci said the allocations embody her agency's new emphasis on equity in transportation for households without cars.

Equity and choices

"Our objective is to provide choices and options for people," she said. And she added that economic equity would flow from such investments.

Other projects and investments on NOACA's list include: