by Abe Kurp

            (Plain Press March 2024) In September 2017, at the intersection of Fulton and Lorain, a young woman named Ashley Shaw was struck by a car while waiting at a red light on her bike. Shaw, who then worked for Ohio City Inc. and is now executive director of Midtown Cleveland Inc., told Channel 5 News in 2021 that the accident left her with a traumatic brain injury, memory loss, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

   She’s not the only one – and others didn’t survive. According to Mark Oprea of Scene, in the last five years at least ten pedestrians have been struck and killed on the stretch of Lorain Ave. from W. 20 to W. 65 that includes that intersection.

NEWS ANALYSIS

   Enter the Cleveland Midway, a planned city-wide bike-friendly project that includes a major redo of Lorain Ave., from the Hope Memorial Bridge at W. 20 to the Michael J. Zone Recreation Center at W. 65. The project has been in the making for about a decade, and plans are still being finalized, but current plans call for narrower lanes for car traffic, new pedestrian aprons, wider sidewalks, redone bus stops, tree beds, and of course, the centerpiece of the project: a two-way cycle track, separated from the roadway and running along the north side of Lorain Ave.

   Add it all up and the result, City planners contend, is a safer, more vibrant street for all.

   The trouble is that all this will come at the expense of parking. Planners say the project will require the removal of somewhere around 80 to 160 of the current 335 on-street parking spaces along that stretch of Lorain.

   As is always the case with this kind of project, the pushback has been swift. The most vocal critics have been business owners along Lorain, especially in the W 40s area. At a recent community meeting about the project on January 25 at Urban Community School, many were in attendance, and the question on everyone’s lips seemed to be: “But where are people going to park?”

   Perhaps anticipating this response, City planners engineered a parking study of Lorain last year, finding that even at its highest occupancy, midday on Saturdays, only 47 percent of the spaces were filled. During the week, typically less than 30 percent of the spaces were filled.

   Still, merchants remain worried that the loss of some on-street parking will lead to a loss of customers, especially people visiting from the suburbs and people just popping in to grab their food and go.

   Business owners along Euclid Ave. voiced similar concerns in 2008 with the opening of the Healthline, the bus rapid transit line that runs down the middle of Euclid Ave – and, yes, takes away space from cars. Since then, though, the line has become an undoubted success. A 2018 study by RTA found that the $200 million project had spurred $9.5 billion in growth along the Euclid corridor, with new jobs, construction, and development in the areas it connects, especially Midtown, downtown and University Circle.

   Nationally, cities have seen similar economic boosts when they’ve added protected bike lanes. In 2015, for example, Salt Lake City discovered that replacing on-street parking along its Broadway business district with a protected bike lane led to an 8.8% boost in sales for the merchants along the route.

   More to the point, planners say the Lorain Midway will reduce points of conflict between drivers and other road users and reduce crashes along the busy and dangerous thoroughfare.

   The main intended beneficiaries are bike riders, but, if all goes well, the benefits could cascade out to other vulnerable road users. The cycle track could accommodate people using those rentable e-scooters, skateboards, and electric wheelchairs. The narrower roadway could also translate to more safety for pedestrians, who will have less distance to cross the street and slower drivers to contend with, as people tend to drive slower on narrower streets. Less distance to cross is especially beneficial (and safer) for people with limited mobility, such as older people or people with certain physical disabilities.

   The most unexpected beneficiaries of the project, though, may just be drivers. A dedicated, separated space for bike riders means less conflict between drivers and riders – so no need to grit your teeth as you nervously pass someone riding in the gutter along the side of the road.

   It could also mean a smoother commute. As the saying goes, “You aren’t stuck in traffic, you are traffic,” so even if you never ride a bike in your life, when other people choose biking or walking, you might get to work just that much faster.

   Projects like the Lorain Midway seek to help more people choose those options by making them easier and safer.

   In this case, it won’t come quick or cheap. Planners say they still need to raise more than half of the project’s $30 million budget, and the project probably won’t be done until 2026 or 2027, almost a decade and a half after it was first proposed.

   But for survivors like Shaw and fans of safer, more vibrant streets, it can’t come soon enough.