Cleveland organizations got two grants aimed at making biking to school safer in an area where children attend nearly a half dozen public and charter schools. 

A $20,000 grant will help Bike Cleveland infuse safety lessons into gym classes throughout the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) next school year. 

The city got a much larger $1 million grant to add separated bike lanes to a three-mile stretch of East 55th Street. 

The money comes from a state program called Safe Routes to School, which promotes walking and biking to school by putting money into educational programs and infrastructure upgrades near schools.  

The program announced $7.6 million in grants for two dozen projects across Ohio. 

For Bike Cleveland’s project, the organization will train gym teachers on a bike-focused curriculum. Bike Cleveland made the curriculum to be taught over three or four weeks, with lessons ranging from learning to ride a bike to guidelines for staying safe on the road. 

Gym teachers will have the opportunity to bring in certified biking instructors to help teach classes. Participating schools will also be able to use a fleet of bikes for hands-on learning. 

So far, five K-8 schools will be teaching the Bike Cleveland curriculum throughout the 2025-2026 school year, but a training day in the fall will be open to any gym teachers in the district. 

“A lot of kids are biking and walking to school at CMSD schools as it is,” Bike Cleveland Executive Director Jacob VanSickle said. “We really want to be able to make sure kids that are biking and walking to school have the skills and the knowledge needed to be able to do it safely.”

Drivers hit more than 600 walkers and bikers in Cleveland in 2024 — about 100 of whom were children — according to a Bike Cleveland analysis of local and state crash data. Those crashes killed 15 people. The report goes on to caution that the number of actual pedestrian crashes could be higher due to issues with reporting accidents.

New bike lanes from Outhwaite Ave. to Lake Erie

Cleveland has been steadily investing in projects to make the city’s streets safer for pedestrians and bikers. 

Earlier this year, the city unveiled a five-year transportation plan called Cleveland Moves. The plan includes safety upgrades to crosswalks such as installing better lighting and modifying crossing signals. There are also plans to slim down wide open roads and build an interconnected network of bike lanes and off-road trails throughout the city. 

The Safe Routes to School money would help build bike lanes along a roughly three-mile section of East 55th Street. It will stretch from East 55th Street’s intersection with Outhwaite Avenue in the Central neighborhood north to the shores of Lake Erie. According to the grant report, the city will redesign this stretch of East 55th Street, removing one lane to build separated bike lanes on both sides of the street. 

East Tech High School, Alfred A. Benesch School and George Washington Carver Elementary School are some of the schools located right off this stretch of East 55th Street. There are more farther up the street, and a few that are a couple blocks off the main road. In addition to the bike lanes, the redesign will add crosswalk markings, walk signals and curb extensions near schools.  

Bike Cleveland helped the city plan this project over the last year. They held in-person community input sessions and sent out a survey asking residents about issues with East 55th Street. Many of the people who responded to the survey mentioned reckless driving and speeding down East 55th, VanSickle said. One response compared the street’s design to a freeway. The survey got more than 300 responses, according to a city spokesperson.

Removing lanes from wide roads, as the city plans to do for this project, can help cut down on speeding and reckless driving, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT).  

In 2021, ODOT did a similar redesign on the section of Miles Avenue between Broadway Avenue and East 175th Street in the Union-Miles neighborhood. They reduced the road from four lanes to three and added bike lanes. 

Looking at crash data from before and after the reconfiguration, ODOT recently reported that accidents are way down in the area. Compared with the number of accidents from 2017-2019, head-on crashes are down 48%, rear-end crashes are down 52% and side swipes are down 63% during 2022-2024.

A city spokesperson did not say exactly how much it will cost to redesign this section of East 55th Street, but the $1 million grant will cover “a substantial amount.” Construction will likely be done in phases starting in 2027.