Lake Link Trail
Urban Design
BCbD has been coordinating a wide-ranging collaborative of public and private stakeholders to create public trails and green spaces that lead to the region’s defining natural resources: Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River. The centerpiece of the plan is the 1.5-mile Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad Trail, which will run through an abandoned rail right-of-way traversing the Flats. The trail will connect to the Towpath Trail on Scranton Peninsula, then skirt the Cuyahoga River at Irishtown Bend below the West Side Market before running north through the West Bank of the Flats. The trail would connect with the existing Willow Street Bridge, which will have widened sidewalks, and then siphon users onto a new pedestrian and bicycle bridge that would cross the lakefront railroad tracks to Lake Erie at Wendy Park. The trail will not only give Clevelanders and visitors new access to the river and lake, but promote alternative transportation by providing a non-motorized connection between the neighborhoods of Tremont, Ohio City and the Flats. It will also serve as a stormwater demonstration project. Part of the trail right-of-way is a depressed former rail bed that will retain water, allowing particulates to settle out before being directed to the river.
