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Important Bike Trails Coming to Cleveland, Thanks to Federal Metroparks Grant

By Sam Allard on Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 9:58 am

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Important Bike Trails Coming to Cleveland, Thanks to Federal Metroparks Grant

Sam Allard / Scene

The good news keeps rolling in for Cleveland. With the announcement of an $8 million Federal grant yesterday, the Cleveland Metroparks will immediately begin construction on four miles of bike trails that link downtown Cleveland to the waterfront.

Among them: a trail that links the Cleveland Foundation Centennial Trail to Wendy Park (praise the Lawd!); the Red Line Greenway connector, which will provide a devoted commuting corridor from the west side to downtown (following the Rapid's Red Line, beginning at the W. 65th Street station); a trail from Whiskey Island to Edgewater Park; and two other trails from the existing Centennial Trail, one to Canal Basin Park and another to the Lakefront Bikeway.

This is huge. It has been dubbed the "Reconnecting Cleveland" project, and it's estimated to cost a hair more than $16 million, all told, so the Federal grant covers half the costs right away. Other funding sources will include the State of Ohio, and the big local foundations: Cleveland and Gund.

Metroparks CEO Brian Zimmerman wants all this to come on-line "very quickly," so construction may begin as early as Monday.

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About The Author

Sam Allard

Sam Allard is the Senior Writer at Scene, in which capacity he covers politics and power and writes about movies when time permits. He's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and the NEOMFA at Cleveland State. Prior to joining Scene, he was encamped in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on an...