1999 Grant Recipient Information
Ohio

Making Chagrin Boulevard a "Place" Instead of a Dividing Road: A Greater Cleveland Demonstration Project in Woodmere Village
Cleveland, Ohio

Abstract

The pressures facing Woodmere Village, a small, predominantly African-American suburb of Cleveland, parallel those of auto-oriented, strip-retail dominated towns throughout the country. Incorporated just over fifty years ago by transplanted Black Clevelanders in search of quiet solitude, a patch of land to call their own, and a rural small town experience, the Village's former "Main Street" was the dirt two-lane Kinsman Road. Now called Chagrin Boulevard, it carries 26,000 vehicles daily. Long gone are the Hazel's of Woodmere Village's past-the former favorite meeting place of local residents. In their stead are nearly one million square feet of shopping centers, malls, office buildings, and fast food restaurants employing several thousand people - with traffic so daunting that people drive to get across the street.

Chagrin Boulevard poses significant problems to vehicles and pedestrians alike. A proliferation of driveways serving stand alone parking lots produce sudden stop and go movements. Frequent turn patterns and 18' lane widths prompt motorists to treat a two-lane, 25 MPH road as a "defacto" four lane highway. Local traffic movement throughout the community, including access from the five, dead-end residential streets south of Chagrin and two of the apartment complexes to the north where the Village's 800 residents live, is frequently choked due to extreme traffic congestion. Sidewalks are discontinuous and there are few crosswalks. Bicycling is dangerous and both public transit and school bus stops are all but inaccessible.

Facing extreme pressure to make yet another concession to the automobile by consenting to allow ODOT to widen Chagrin Boulevard's roadway from 36 feet to 60 feet, Woodmere Village officials and businesses decided to explore other options. They are intent on redefining their community in a highly creative manner. The goal is to create an environment for small town community interactions while simultaneously handling 26,000-36,000 ADT on its "Main Street."

Like so many regions nation-wide, Greater Cleveland is not growing but simply rearranging its residential land uses into patterns which contribute to urban sprawl at the cost of its character and liveability. A primary objective of Woodmere Village's TCSP proposal is to provide a local demonstration project which balances the interests of "home," "place" and business - access, comfort, aesthetics and safety - with the goal of commuter convenience. Woodmere Village's TCSP project also will set the stage for the adoption of new zoning and land use policies to encourage denser, more sustainable development in the future.

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