CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A revolutionary proposal from the Rotary Club of Cleveland to thread a greenway trail from the city's West Side to downtown over the Cuyahoga River could take a critical step toward reality Tuesday at a transit authority meeting.

Rotary volunteers are hoping the board of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority will approve further study of the proposed Red Line Greenway, which would extend from West 65th Street to downtown, with a section above the river on the RTA viaduct.

"I am so excited," Rotary member Leonard Stover, one of the Rotary volunteers driving the Red Line proposal, said Monday morning. "I feel really good about where we are."

Stover and other Rotarians see the greenway as Cleveland's answer to New York's highly popular High Line Park, which is set atop a disused rail line on the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

Among other things, the greenway would offer spectacular views of the river and the skyline, along with a commuting route to Tower City Center.

Other benefits would include recreational connections to the Towpath Trail and the proposed Lake Link Trail on the west side of the river, with connections to Wendy Park on Whiskey Island along the Lake Erie waterfront. The greenway would also connect to planned improvements at the core of Ohio City at the West 25th Street Rapid station.

Stover said the estimated cost of the project is $13 million, and that 20 percent of the money could be raised privately. Other public sources would be tapped for the balance, he said. Rotary's goal is to begin construction of the trail in 2016.

RTA general manager Joe Calabrese, reached at his office Monday, said, "We're hopeful we can move forward and get a lot of support. And, obviously, the big challenge will be to raise the money to make this a reality."

Calabrese said that a major factor in his decision to bring the Rotary proposal to the RTA board has been the interest shown by Cleveland Metroparks in operating and maintaining the trail.

He said the Metroparks board is expected to discuss the trail proposal at its upcoming board meeting next week.

Metroparks CEO Brian Zimmerman could not be reached immediately for comment Monday morning.

It has taken several years for the Rotary to develop the Red Line proposal in collaboration with LAND Studio, the nonprofit Cleveland organization whose mission includes planning and design of public space and public art in the city.

Rotarians first generated the concept for a hike-and-bike trail along the Red Line in 2009. And they've organized two professional planning studies by VOCON and Environmental Design Group to refine the concept.

Stover said that VOCON contributed work on design worth $45,000 to $50,000. He said that LAND Studio has donated an additional $10,000 to support further studies.

"We're doing this because we think it's a project that needs to happen," said Ann Zoller, LAND Studio's executive director. "We're backing up the Rotary and Lennie's vision."

It was more than 30 years ago that Rotary volunteers offered to remove trash and mow a strip of land along the West Side RTA tracks – which are highly visible to commuters and visitors riding the Rapid in from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

Since then, Rotarians estimate that the grading, mowing and cleanups they've conducted have lowered the potential cost of the trail by at least $1 million.

Stover said that the trail project would be divided in three phases. The first two, costing approximately $7 million, would take the trail from West 65th Street to the mid point of the RTA viaduct over the Cuyahoga.

The third phase, costing another $6 million, would extend the trail across the rest of the viaduct, which extends north and northeast over the river and Columbus Road Peninsula.

Calabrese and Stover said the trail on the east half of the viaduct would require either consolidating the four active RTA tracks there or building a cantilevered structure off the side of the bridge.

At the eastern end of the viaduct, a structure of some kind would be needed to enable pedestrians and cyclists to descend from the viaduct to Canal Basin Park and/or Tower City Center. Details are still evolving, they said.

Stover said he hopes the Rotary could collect up to $4 million in private money for the project, with the excess over the $2.6 million (or 20 percent of construction costs) devoted to a maintenance endowment.

Calabrese said that engineers on the RTA staff have been hesitant about supporting the greenway proposal over the past year because of concerns over safety.

But Calabrese said he thinks it's possible to use attractive fencing to separate the active RTA tracks from the trail along much of the right-of-way.

Narrow sections of the trail may need to be closed from time to time for RTA maintenance projects, Calebrese said.

Stover's view: "I'd rather have a greenway that gets shut down once in a while than no greenway."