Slow Roll Week 18: Opportunity Corridor

As we enter our final stretch of rides, seven Mondays leading to our late October finale, we contemplate change in Cleveland and ponder the meaning of the word "opportunity". Being on a bike allows us, as always, an opportunity of our own: to see things at a slower pace and get a better feel for the rhythm and heartbeat of a community than you'll get just speeding through it inside a car.

The Opportunity Corridor, a 35-mph roadway that sliced through a depressed existing neighborhood on the city's east side, sought to connect existing road networks to the booming health sector near University Circle. The project cost hundreds of millions of dollars to complete and, since its opening, has met with mixed reviews. Although its stated purpose was to better connect historically under-served communities with the rest of the region, detractors point out that its main effect thus far has been to shave a few minutes off the commuting time of suburbanites on their way to healthcare or education jobs and that that community that was upended to create the road has not seen much in the way of benefit. We'll ride our bikes on a short stretch of the OC to get a closer look at how it exists and functions in relation to its immediate surroundings.

In the same neighborhood, Rid-All Green Partnership took root in an abandoned dumping ground more than ten years ago, and has grown to cover several square blocks with urban farms, a large composting project, a community kitchen and a farmer's market. In many ways Rid-All has become a national model for reviving unwanted and abandoned areas in the heart of urban environments with new and creative solutions. We'll start our ride in Otter Park, the heart of the new community Rid-All and their partners and surrounding community have built in an area where growth was once seen as a distant dream.

Parking will be difficult for this ride; Otter Park (2881 E 82nd St) does not have a parking lot and there are restrictions on many of the nearby streets. We'll try to get a better idea for you before the ride about where you can park. But expect to ride a block or two, at least, to get to the park.

It will be quite dark by the second half of rides going forward. Please light up your bikes! Light them up in creative ways and help us create the amazing parade we turn into every fall, a stream of glowing and moving parts that flows through Cleveland like an illuminated river.