CLEVELAND, Ohio - Members of the Rotary Club of Cleveland are exceedingly psyched over the Friday announcement that the proposed Red Line Greenway on the city's West Side has been awarded a $2.1 million federal construction grant.

The money means validation and credibility for a project that is turning the corner from dreams to reality.

"We're so excited," Rotary member Leonard Stover, coordinator of the greenway project, said on Monday. "I don't have any great quotes to give you. I can just tell you the whole crew, all of Rotary, are so excited."

Stover said the grant would help the club jump-start a private fundraising campaign in the summer to raise the remaining $3.6 million needed to build the first two-mile section of the proposed three-mile trail.

The greenway runs next to and just south of the Red Line Rapid from West 53rd Street and the Zone Recreation Center to the Cuyahoga River south of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge. A section within Zone extends the trail to West 65th Street.

Backers of the project hope ultimately to extend the greenway trail east into downtown by using the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's Red Line viaduct to cross the Cuyahoga. In all, the project could cost $13 million, and could be finished by 2020.

The $2.1 million grant announced Friday was awarded by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency through a federal program called Congestion Mitigation Air Quality, or CMAQ.

According to the Federal Highway Administration's website, the program is intended to help communities meet requirements of the 1970 Clean Air Act.

The money is available "to reduce congestion and improve air quality for areas that do not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone, carbon monoxide, or particulate matter."

In all, Northeast Ohio received $42.7 million of the $133.3 million in Ohio CMAQ grants awarded Friday, or 32 percent of the total – more than any other region in the state.

RTA won the major portion of the local grants, including $6.9 million to replace diesel buses with natural gas-powered buses and another $14.8 million to replace an additional 105 bus, trolley and bus rapid-transit vehicles with natural gas-powered vehicles.

The Red Line Greenway would connect to the proposed Lake Link Trail on the west side of the Cuyahoga River, a project that also won a $3.3 million CMAQ grant Friday.

Project organizers of the Lake Link Trail were not available for comment Monday morning.

Speaking of the Red Line Greenway, Stover said: "I've heard from so many people that we've got momentum on our side now. This is really going to help us leverage our fundraising efforts."

By seeking private dollars to build the greenway, the Rotary is joining a relatively new trend in Cleveland in which private-sector money is helping to pay for public infrastructure.

Another example would be the millions of dollars contributed toward the renovation of Public Square by the Cleveland, Gund and KeyBank foundations.

The project is also part of a growing network of bike paths, linear parks and trails that are beginning to knit Cuyahoga County and Northeast Ohio together, including the proposed East Side Greenway, for which a new round of public meetings begin Wednesday.

Stover said the Rotary plans to use the Internet for a crowd-funding campaign, and to approach area foundations as part of the campaign for the Red Line Greenway. The Rotary also plans to sell naming rights.

The Rotary will invite potential donors to attend guided tours of the greenway this summer – when it's visible and not covered in snow.

"The key part is giving tours, and tours are more effective when it's nice and green," Stover said.

Rotary members informally adopted the unused strip of land owned by RTA next to the Red Line as a cleanup project more than 30 years ago.

The original idea was to remove trash and weeds and improve the area's appearance for commuters and visitors riding the Rapid to and from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

The project, initially called "Rapid Recovery," morphed into the urban gardening and tree-planting effort that later became the nonprofit ParkWorks organization, and then LAND Studio.

In 2009, Stover and other Rotarians came up with the idea of turning the landscape into a linear public park that could fuel revitalization among West Side neighborhoods.

Since then, the Rotary advanced the greenway concept by helping to organize two planning studies by Vocon and the nonprofit LAND Studio, and by Cleveland- and Akron-based Environmental Design Group.

Stover said that under an agreement with RTA and Cleveland Metroparks, RTA would lease the greenway to Metroparks, or provide an easement. Metroparks will collaborate with the Rotary on design of the greenway, and would then manage the completed project.

Stover said he hopes construction on the two-mile segment funded with the CMAQ grant could be finished in 2018.