Plan calls for green space along gritty area of W. 65th street

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(Gallery by Joshua Gunter, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- West side neighborhoods want to welcome more than a rumble of cars and trucks to West 65th Street.

So a $5.6 million plan calls for green space and an off-street trail for cyclists and walkers along two, gritty miles that roll from Detroit-Shoreway to the Stockyards neighborhood.

But the plan is drawing heat from some in the cycling community. They say West 65th should have bike lanes to usher their travel, a feature that would be less costly than a 10-foot-wide trail.

Families want the trail, said Councilman Matt Zone and planner Michelle Johnson, who crafted the West 65th proposal.

Controversy and the range of opinions are no surprise. Executing the plan will test the city's resolve and flexibility in forging street-oriented change designed to attract people and businesses to older, blue collar neighborhoods.

Land along West 65th ranges from quiet residential with a view of Lake Erie in Detroit-Shoreway to scrap metal yards and abandoned factories in Stockyards near Storer Avenue.

"Even though you have these huge industrial uses next to residential areas, it's part of what makes the neighborhood special," Johnson said. "People seem to like that."

Ten schools and two recreation centers are near West 65th. That's a big reason why Zone and neighborhood leaders want a route that's kinder to walkers and cyclists, while accommodating businesses.

Zone and community development officials won a $75,000 grant in 2011 from the area's largest planning body, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency.

NOACA'S "livable communities" grant pays for planning that fosters sustainable development and travel options besides cars and trucks.

An effective plan backed by the city and neighborhoods paves the way for future cash. NOACA doles out millions of transportation dollars in the region.

Zone and neighborhood-development groups hired Environmental Design Group and Johnson, a former NOACA planner, to do the West 65th plan. (A PowerPoint of the plan is posted below.)

It's in its final stages, after multiple community meetings and input from a steering committee that includes the city, Ohio Department of Transportation, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

The 10-foot-wide trail on the east side of West 65th is the plan's main feature. It would take up the 6-foot-wide sidewalk and about 4 feet of the existing tree lawn, leaving about a 5-foot-wide buffer from the street.

Cleveland Councilman Matt Zone

"Other than West 25th and probably West Boulevard, it's the near West side's major north-south artery," Zone said. "It ties in I-71 to the north coast of the neighborhood."

A number of intersections in the corridor's northern section will get an eco-friendly touch.

The curbs will be pushed out to create short stretches of green. The curb bump-outs shorten the cross walk for pedestrians, calm the traffic and divert water from storm sewers. An inlet funnels the water into the grassy, planted areas.

West 65th is seen as a key, neighborhood link in the city's growing bike plan. As proposed, the two-lane street would feature signs and "sharrows," alerting drivers that they share the road with cyclists.

The features along West 65th would likely meet the city's Complete and Green Streets law (pdf), which calls for a variety of environmental and alternative-transportation treatments for new road projects.

Ken Silliman, chief of staff to Mayor Frank Jackson, said elements of West 65th appear to be features the mayor's "complete streets'' policy encourages.

But Silliman said he's not familiar with the plan's details.

"How workable it is and whether it achieves the objective (of the law), those are the kind of things we look at down the road,'' Silliman said.

Some in the cycling community say the West 65th plan needs something else – bike lanes, rather than a multipurpose trail.

Bike lanes "create a more predictable environment for the driver and the cyclist," said Marc Lefkowitz, who has criticized the West 65th design in a blog for the GreenCityBlueLake Institute.

Bike lanes will attract more riders than sharrows, he said. And putting cyclists on the shared-use trail with pedestrians is risky, Lefkowitz said. Cyclists can roll at speeds that are a better mix with cars than those on foot, Lefkowitz said.

He and others said the city and ODOT need to loosen their requirements for 12-foot-wide driving lanes.

Narrowing lanes to 10 or 11 feet and limiting on-street parking to one side of West 65th could yield the space for bike lanes, Lefkowitz and others have suggested.

The lanes on West 65th must meet the 12-foot-wide standard to receive federal funding, ODOT spokeswoman Amanda Lee said in an email.

"These design standards are in place for the safety of the public,'' Lee said.

Johnson said she too is frustrated with ODOT's stance on lane widths. But it's a moot point – in public meetings, residents wanted to maintain parking on both sides of the street and have the multi-purpose trail, Johnson said.

Families want the trail to improve safety for children on bikes, Johnson said. Including bike lanes -- each of them 5-feet-wide -- would be a difficult fit at best on the 40-foot-wide street, Johnson said.

Jacob VanSickle, executive director of Bike Cleveland, said he supports the trail concept, as long as it's safe.

The trail will cross more than 40 residential driveways, along with commercial and industrial properties.

VanSickle suggested banning right turns on red at intersections where cars could encounter trail users.

Planners will also look at equipping the trail with signals that coordinate with nearby traffic lights, so trail users know what cars and trucks are doing.

At Lorain and Detroit, the plan calls for bike boxes, which have yet to be used in the city.

A bike box is a marked area on the pavement at the head of traffic and behind the crosswalk at traffic lights.

Cyclists would roll into the box, move to the side they are turning and signal the direction they're headed, to avoid conflicts with cars and trucks behind them.

Whether the bike boxes will be included is iffy.

They’ve received generally good reviews in the United State and Europe. But the boxes are viewed as a potential safety risk by Cleveland’s traffic engineers, Maureen Harper, communications chief for Jackson, said in an email.

They’re under review as the city crafts a street-design policy under its Complete and Green Streets law, Harper said.

The two-mile trail is the priciest part of the West 65th plan. Zone said he's hearing from all sides – West 65th businessmen who don't want their trucks having to deal with the trail, families who want the trail and cyclists who want bike lanes.

Nothing is written in stone, Zone emphasized, including the trail.

He won't push for funding until he feels a consensus is reached in the neighborhoods. More public meetings are needed before the plan gains city approval, he noted.

While Zone is preaching patience, don't expect the proposal to gather dust. The councilman and city officials are enamored with the idea of a cycling link from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo to the lakefront.

West 65th would be the longest stretch of that link, which includes Denison. Cycling amenities are planned for Denison, which already connects with Brookside Reservation and the zoo.

"I don't want everyone to get all bent out of shape," Zone said. "This is a conceptual plan at this point."