The road now runs through it - Cleveland's Lakefront access

It was a beautiful day and we decided to head to Gordon Park. A park I hadn't been to in 15 years but drive past on my home from work almost every day. To me, coming from a family that harbors a somewhat nerdy passion for this city, Gordon Park makes me a little sad. Don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful park and offers fishing, boating, biking/jogging, access to Lake Erie, access to Dike 14, greenspace for cookouts and playing and all around park frivolity, however way back when, in the late 1950's to 1960's the innerbelt project was implemented, severing Gordon Park from Cleveland's Rockefeller Park home of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens. What was once a sinuous green path that connected University Circle to Lake Erie was forever altered, isolating Rockefeller park via an interstate interchange and forever changing the fabric of the area.

Luckily Rockefeller Park is still there, stronger than ever, and one can argue that the access to Gordon Park did it only good (albeit from a strictly vehicular point of view), but the import of the innerbelt decision is one that rankles the City of Cleveland even to this day. Nary a discussion can be made about how to improve our burg without the exclamation of lack of lake access. It isn't only the innerbelt though, rail, industry and infrastructure hamper our access, giving but a few localized schwerpunkt with which to breach this boundary and reach Lake Erie.

It could be here that we can have a discussion on destination versus community. Where the language of identifying with a location is so much stronger when one can become more intimately knowledgeable of a space by having taken the time to explore, to discover the nuances, to make familiar ascertainment of an unfamiliar region, made much easier when one has reason to walk around and explore. Whereas in a destination one is encapsulated in their travel, with the sole purpose of fulfilling the obligation of the destination and then travel back to familiar areas. The destination becomes more compact/contained (mentally) when reached via limited access and by car then when a myriad of access points are allowed and travel can be made by more intimate scale (foot or bike) or by a more public service such as bus or light rail.

This discussion can be had again at a later time. This isn't why I am here today.

Instead I had run across an article reminding us of 4 cases where the removal of a highway actually alleviated traffic". This isn't new news. There have been a plethora of reports arguing that increasing highway access does little in decrease commute time or negate congestion (as easier commute results in more exurbs, increasing commuters and increasing congestion) and can be directly blamed for the decrease in use of the urban core. However now we are starting to see a conscious move towards pushing the import of the automobile aside in favor of people and amenities for people.

So what does one thing have to do with the other? Imagine if the innerbelt were redesigned to accommodate less traffic and more access to the lake. Where communities could actually link to both sides of the Freeway in order to grow and become whole, where the commute into Cleveland would make people question the sanity of driving in from an hour out (when it quickly becomes 2 or 3 hours) but instead realize that it makes more sense to live where you work and fill in the voids of the city (and increase tax revenue). Imagine being able to use the Lakefront to celebrate the city and its history. Imagine access to the river as well, or to Tremont (another neighborhood cut off by the innerbelt) or all the other neighborhoods that are currently shorn in half by eight lanes of concrete (Lorain Ave. never fully recovered although the barrier may have made Lakewood stronger as Cleveland to its South is beyond the barricade).

With the innerbelt project currently under study (as it has been for over a decade) we (and NOACA, who, through the Avon Interchange project has shown a willingness to become rather complicate in the destruction of downtown Cleveland) need to find a way to decrease the costs of the unnecessary infrastructure that hampers our city through easing sprawl as well as blocks the evolution of Cleveland.

resources:
Cleveland Public Library - Postcards from Parks of Cleveland's Past - near the bottom third is Gordon Park.