The new, two-way bike lane that opened at the end of March along Clifton Avenue has the potential to become a permanent addition to Cincinnati’s infrastructure.
In August, Cincinnati City Council will decide whether or not to provide additional funding to make the protected bike lane perpetually available to pedestrians and bikers alike, so they can feel safer on their commutes.
Wade Johnston, director at Tri-State Trails — an initiative of Green Umbrella that expands and connects Cincinnati’s bike trail networks — has high hopes that the Clifton Avenue lane will be sticking around, namely because Uptown has had a need for a protected bike path for years.
“Clifton has so much activity,” Johnston says.
“(Biking) ends up being quicker in a community like Clifton,” he says. “When we create a designated bike lane like (the one on) Clifton Avenue, it’s kind of like a bypass for people to walk and to bike.”
During his years as an undergraduate at the University of Cincinnati, Johnston relied heavily on biking to get to his classes and co-op faster than he could in a car.
In addition to adding convenience, the bike path provides much needed safety to often vulnerable bikers and pedestrians.
According to Johnston, before 2020, bicycle fatalities had been steadily on the rise. Last year, at the start of the pandemic, however, cities across the country made a conscious effort to become more bike-friendly as people stayed home and commuted in cars less frequently.
Biking became a more prevalent form of transportation — for fun and function.
“This (bike path) is an example of (Cincinnati) seeing that trend, responding to community needs and making it happen,” Johnston says.
That being said, last year "car crashes on local streets killed 94 individuals and injured at least 5,064 others in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky," says Tri-State Trails. And just last month, a cyclist died after being hit by a van in Westwood. (Tri-State Trails recently implemented a dashboard to track "traffic crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists," which you can view at greenumbrella.maps.arcgis.com.)
The new Clifton Avenue lane features protective curbs, markers and signs alerting vehicle traffic of bikers and walkers.
“We know that there are 41% fewer accidents when protected bike lanes are in place,” Mark Jeffreys, Clifton Town Meeting Trustee, told CityBeat in an email. “That is not just about cyclists, but also pedestrians and those in cars impacted by those accidents.”
Jeffreys played a pivotal role in the development of the new trail.
“In the summer of 2020, I saw temporary bike lanes popping up in cities all over the world as an easier way for people to get around in the pandemic,” he says.
That is when he drafted a proposal for the Clifton bike path and spoke with Clifton Town Meeting, where he says he received unanimous support for the idea.
Jeffreys then communicated with stakeholders who would be directly impacted by the path, like UC, Hebrew Union College, Tri-Health and Cincinnati Parks. He received a letter of support from each institution in favor of the potential bike path.
After collaborating with Cincinnati Councilwoman Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney and Mayor John Cranley, the project was set in motion.
“We jumped on (the idea),” says Councilwoman Kearney. “Cincinnati has not been a bike-riding city, and so cars don’t always think about bicyclists.”
Kearney says that safety was on the forefront of her mind as Cincinnati City Council moved forward with the plan. It was for Jeffreys as well.
“It was a parallel effort — first making sure there was community support and then support within the city elected officials and administration and then overcoming the funding barriers,” Jeffreys says.
He reached out to the Devou Good Foundation, an organization that has funded bike infrastructure in the Cincinnati area previously, and they agreed to help him fund the project with up to $86,000 of available budgeting.
Ahead of the August vote, Councilwoman Kearney says she hopes the path will become permanent.
“We’ve asked people to give input and let us know if they like it and they want it to stay,” she says. “The hope for Clifton Town Meeting and my hope is that it will stay.”
Email your input on the bike path to Kearney’s email [email protected] or call her office at 513-352-5205.
Within a few weeks of the bike path’s unveiling, it has already proven to be effective. Jeffreys says that before the paths were in place, 55% of cars would speed on Clifton Avenue, sometimes up to 73 miles per hour in a 35 mile-per-hour zone.
After the two-way bike paths were installed — with signs alerting drivers to their presence — the number of speeders has reduced to 29% of cars.