Detroit Avenue Bike Lane

The next public meeting for the Detroit Avenue bike lane is on September 24^th in the Ohio City neighborhood at Franklin Circle Church (1688 Fulton Rd) at 6pm. Come show support for a great project.

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Notes from the last meeting

On Wednesday August 28^th, the City of Cleveland presented to a crowd of 86 people a plan to add a bike lane to Detroit Avenue. Before the meeting even started, we knew the meeting was going to be fun since out of those 86 people, 68 of them biked to the meeting. Bike Cleveland has worked with the City of Cleveland on the Detroit Avenue Bike Lane project since December 2011 when the City committed to find a way to get cyclists safely east and west while the City worked out its dispute with ODOT for funding the West Shoreway Project.

The proposed bike lane on Detroit Avenue will extend from W. 25^th Street fifty blocks west to Lake Avenue. The proposed plan for Detroit Avenue shows bike lanes for about 80 percent of the 1.7-mile stretch. Bike lanes would be substituted for “sharrows” in the Gordon Square Arts District because the road narrows in that section due to the recently completed streetscape.

Cyclists at Wednesday’s meeting expressed concern about the current lack of accommodations on the south side of the Detroit Superior Bridge. Traffic Engineer Andy Cross said the city is also planning improvements to the south side of the Bridge to make it more bike friendly and that he plans to have those installed before the next meeting.

Why is a Detroit Avenue bike lane important? According to the most recent bike counts conducted by NOACA, Detroit Avenue is one of the most heavily used bike corridors in the City of Cleveland. From September 2011 to May 2012, there has been a 32% increase in bike traffic. If we want to continue this growth and encourage more people to bike more often, we need to create stress free biking environments, and bike lanes are a useful treatment in serving that purpose.

The bike lanes will be installed this fall, but if it gets cold too soon, the project will be completed by Spring 2013.

You can also see the presentation from the meeting on below.

Detroit Avenue Bikeway Project