For many first hearing about the plans, the information was alarming.
A bike trail proposed for the bulk of Washington Blvd., from Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights to Walter Stinson Park in University Heights, would mean tearing up half of the alluring greenery along the way. Eighty of the 100 trees on the stretch would be uprooted.
That was the information shared on a flyer posted to social media by concerned residents.
“This is an ill-conceived plan,” it read, next to a chainsaw cutting the “CH” tree logo. “Adding a ten-foot-wide asphalt bike path to the median is unnecessary, costly and would destroy our beautiful, tree-lined street.”
Bike lanes and multi-use trails are typically embraced with open arms, sold to planning committees and city councils as win-win fixes to calm traffic, spur business and save cyclists’ lives.
But in the Heights, opposition has formed ever since a Washington Boulevard Multipurpose Trail was proposed in a regional transportation plan early last year.
The flyer, first posted anonymously in a handful of Facebook groups and online forums, only managed to further inflame.
“When I saw it, I thought, ‘What the hell! Are they really going to decimate another part of the landscape?’” Kevin Horter, a 49-year-old elementary school teacher who lives near Washington and Brookshire, told Scene in a phone call.
“I couldn’t believe they would go forth with some kind of poorly thought out plan,” he said. “For just a half-mile stretch.” He laughed. “I might be chaining myself to a tree.”
Though Cleveland Heights has an above average canopy for a city in Cuyahoga County, it lost 13 percent of that coverage from 2011 to 2017, due to development and the cost of caretaking. The newest revelation was cause for alarm.
But that concern is premature, according to officials.
City administrations told Scene that trail designs are nowhere near being rendered, a full price tag hasn’t been settled on yet, nor is the amount of trees that would have to go if the trail’s constructed.
As for the latter detail, former University Heights Mayor Michael Brennan estimated in September that only six trees would be removed in that city.
“I want to reassure you that if any trees are removed, they will be replaced,” Brennan wrote in a letter to the public, shortly after seeing the flyer posted on social media. “As they always are in University Heights.”
In an interview with Scene, Brennan chalked up the “spread of misinformation” as an attempt to “undermine the project.” All petty attempts to delay what Brennan said would be a good thing—to give cyclists a safer route through the East Side.
“The Heights communities are held back when we act provincially and we act in the interests of a small group of noisy people,” he said.
Instead of fair public comment, he added, “you got some cowardly POS who put some piece of crap flyer out there on the Internet which, you know, goes viral and it scares people.”
When reached for comment, a Cleveland Heights spokesperson denounced any speculation—especially the alarm found in the chainsaw flyer—as simple hearsay.
“The plan’s intention to improve bike safety along Washington Boulevard does not specify a design for a ‘bike path,’ nor has any design been created,” they wrote Scene.
“The city shares our residents’ passion for protecting our green spaces and trees,” they added. “We want to assure them that, when the time comes to review [plan] recommendations, or any other proposed project, Mayor Petras is committed to developing a purposeful plan that balances the need for green spaces and strengthening our neighborhoods, and would not support a design that would cut through the Washington Boulevard median.”
About $1 million from a federal grant has been raised so far. After designs are finalized, construction of the trail itself could take two to three years.
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