Kevin - I love to ride and love your dedication to riding but you are proposing to place people who are physically exerting themselves and breathing deeply within a few feet of 1,000s of polluting trucks and automobiles, combined with the already bad air over the Flats... you're talking brain damage, heart attack and asthma conditions here.

Many places are just not safe for humans, and for some reason people want to put bicyclists in many of them... good use for toxic sites, some think.

Not to mention the excellent, scenic bike access from Tremont to downtown through the Flats or over the Lorain/Carnegie Bridge... with such a poor plan for the community and vehicle aspects of the ODOT bridge and such waste of transportation dollars ahead... I don't get this at all...

Explain how this is not dangerous to people's health.

Explain why this is needed by anyone.

Disrupt IT

This is one of the dumbest ideas I've heard since the talking about the bridge began.  There are so many other, shorter and safer routes to incorporatea bike and pedestrian lanes into without propelling them into such close proximity of fast moving traffic.

Norm, you are so right, the safety factor alone would be enough to scare the pants off anybody with common sense not to mention the funes.  Even separate lanes divided from the flow of moving traffic is not enough to provide enough distance for safe travel.  Flying objects and debris from accidents from vehicles traveling at high rates of speed could kill a person instantly.  A helmet only protects the head, what about the rest of the body?  The impact to the chest from a small gravel thrown from the tire of a big truck could take a person out as easily as a rock to the head.

Kevin-thanks for posting here, but I have to agree with Norm and Jerleen--it's a proposal that comes with a $$ price tag and I would consider it a gross waste of my tax dollar.* 

I would much rather see entire streets rededicated to bike traffic.  St. Clair (East) and Lake Ave. (West) and Broadway (Southeast) and Fulton (Southwest) would be a great candidates for primary bike travel.  I also think that Superior Ave. and Fairmount Blvd. could be made more bike friendly. 

To get downtown from the west side--my preferred route is to ride the wide raised sidewalk along the Lorain-Carnegie bridge.

(BTW--I am typing this from home)

 *I also think that this proposal is also meant to distract from the land and demolition issues surrounding the new inner belt which will take out houses and businesses to the west of the existing bridge/inner belt.  The money wasted and the redistribution of wealth/land going on in Tremont is unconscionable. Jerleen--the print version of the article has a photograph showing the houses to be demolished...several on Fairfield west of the innerbelt.  Stripmatic company will be bought out and demolished, too.  Consider that this business made significant investments in their property a few years ago...and how this will impact the Gateway animal clinic.

 I believe the bike lane is to be a separated by a large jersey barrier from the rest of the roadway. One would not be biking directly next to the traffic as if you were going down Euclid. There are many safe examples of this typology around the world.

It would look something like this image GreenCityBlueLake has in a blog post showing a similar bike lane across an interstate bridge. They also have images of what the InnerBelt bike could look like if included, if you click through.

Thanks for posting here Ted--I have a degree in Landscape Architecture and did work for some time in the design profession.  We have snow in NEO and the major maintenance issues that come with it.  

Snow is a major factor never factored into so many of our design proposals.  We always want to believe a different reality.  It's better to design for our reality.

the West 14th street ramp is open again AND someone had a flash of brilliance to add an entrance lane. No longer do you have to do a "Magic Merge" and pray the aggressive drivers will let you on the highway.

I have to say, I'm 50/50 on the bike/pedestrian lane idea. Biking through the flats sEEms ideal, until you actually dO it (I relied on bike transport to get to work Tremont-Downtown  for over a year) and then you realize the horrible condition of the road, the maniacal truckers and the damn awful soot and dirt vehicles kick up as they whiz past you, as well as two daunting hills (you're screwed either coming or going) make the "journey" less than pleasant and down right dangerous.

Both the other bridges are scary and nothing shields you from wayward vehicles. If its snowed, forget about it - you're doomed. And, I think someone on drugs designed the "bike path" on the Detroit Superior bridge - its the most dysfunctional and truly dangerous route to take.

But what really gets me is what you face once you get downtown. Its the most dangerous bike turf I know of. It seems efforts towards making that area more bike safe (forget about this "friendly" lingo crap - its life and limb thats at issue) would be the most important. Unless you're 20 something and had a childhood in gymnastics or dirt biking, you're almost certain to get injured.

I gave up on the biking to work idea a couple of years ago and now focus on fuel efficient vehicles.

I attended the Traffic meeting at Post 58 on November 10, 2009, at which time Jim McKnight, from McKnight Associates, showed slide images of some of the new connector trails and part of the discussions included the Abbey Bridge areas over to Lorain and West Side Market. 

The new plans would be to remove the Jersey barriers and widen the pathways which would allow some type of snow removal device to maintain the crossings in the winter time.   I travel th Abbey Bridge in the winter and sometimes when it snows, you can't walk across the bridge - unless you walk in the middle of the bridge - the snow plows burries the sidewalks and the barriers.  The idea is to make the bridge safer for cyclists and pedestrians but to make it more open and accessible to those with disabilities and are wheelchair bound.  We all agreed that the entire area in Tremont should be opened up and made more pedestrian friendly - giving ALL residents more of an access to what the community has to offer and making it safer and easier to get to the libraries, bus stops, shops, churches, restaurants, etc.   The same goes for getting to West 25th and Lorain/West Side Market.

The plans also showed how these bike trails could be connected to the entire city. 

I did not know that we could make requests….if so I would like this design please.

Now, this design makes more sense and removes the safety issues from the traffic.  I like this one.

Why just a bridge…it could be work of art and also highly functional as it connects both sides of the river.  

Ted--please don't be discouraged from posting and commenting here.  But, before we dream BIG for new infrastructure in NEO, I would like to
see investment and maintenance of existing infrastructure.  There are a number of beautiful lift bridges in the Flats--namely the
Eagle Ramp bridge that should be repaired and reopened.  Let's fix what we have first.  Please.

I'd just like to chime in here and let everyone know that the NOACA governing board is not expected to make any decision on the Innerbelt bridge at the December 11th meeting. The ODOT presentation will be a project status report for information only. There will be no resolution before the board regarding the Innerbelt bridge.

Public comment is still welcome, although it's our understanding that ODOT will not be commenting on bike/ped facilities due to pending legal action. You can find information on NOACA's public meeting comment policy on our website: http://www.noaca.org/pipsum.pdf

 Jonathan Giblin, NOACA