Our friends at GreenCityBlueLake.org are doing the amazingly 
important leg work on this– we’re just spreading the word! Paraphrasing from their website:
For nearly ten years, the Ohio Department of Transportation has been planning the biggest and most expensive road repair project in Northeast Ohio’s history — the reconstruction of the Innerbelt Bridge where Interstates 90, 71, and 77 connect and pass through downtown Cleveland.
More than $1 billion could be spent on this project, but ODOT has been totally unresponsive to citizen outcry that the bridge should also have a bike and pedestrian lane that could be safe and separate from car traffic. More questions include:
- Will plans to smooth out traffic flows on the Innerbelt make the city more livable and more economically competitive, or will they simply ease traffic away from downtown?
- Will the urban scars created years ago when the highways slashed through the city be healed and capped over with new parks and development sites (i.e. High Street’s cap over I-670 in Columbus)?
- With creative engineering, can the old Central Viaduct Bridge be replaced by a single signature bridge that doesn’t negatively impact Tremont?
- How does the $1 billion investment in road work relate to the city’s larger goals for increased housing opportunities downtown and in surrounding neighborhoods?
They even made a music video about it!
So get to it! Become a fan on Facebook, write the governor, keep yourself informed! This bridge is going to be here for a long time, let’s make it accessible to EVERYONE!
Tags: bike lanes, greencitybluelake, infrastructure, interbelt bridge, odot, ted strickland, transportation