Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Cleveland

HUD Tells Cleveland: Don’t Let Opportunity Corridor Go “Horribly Wrong”

2:13 PM EDT on July 7, 2015

It was a sad day in Washington, DC, last year when Harriet Tregoning left the DC Office of Planning. But it’s becoming clear that she's a great addition at HUD.

In her capacity as the agency's principal deputy assistant secretary for community development, Tregoning issued a stern warning to the city of Cleveland and Ohio DOT last week not to mess up the road project known as the "Opportunity Corridor." Clearly she fears they will do just that.

"You could either get it gloriously right or horribly wrong," Tregoning said during a visit to Cleveland, according to the Plain Dealer.

In its quest to cut a faster path for drivers from the freeway to University Circle, a major employment center, Ohio DOT plans to spend more than $100 million a mile and destroy 76 homes to build a five-lane, 35-mph road. If you want to build a project like that in 2015, it clearly helps to cloak it under the guise of "opportunity."

But Tregoning recognizes the project for what it is: suburban-style road-building in an already-depressed area of a city that desperately needs a different kind of growth. Talking to the City Club, a civic engagement organization, she urged local leaders to see the corridor as an opportunity for development and employment, not just a road for commuters to get to work fast. And that would require changes to the road design itself.

"I love my friends at the state DOTs, but they often overbuild things," she said. "They build for a traffic projection that is very unlikely to happen." Indeed, traffic in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County rose just 0.02 percent a year between 2000 and 2013. There’s no justification for building such a wide and fast road inside the city limits where walkable development is called for.

Tregoning warned that building a five-lane, high-speed road through the city’s most depressed neighborhoods flies in the face of a regional plan, funded by HUD through its Partnership for Sustainable Communities with U.S. DOT and the EPA. The plan, called Vibrant NEO, seeks to make Northeast Ohio greener and more economically competitive by reversing the cycle of sprawl and investing in established communities.

Construction is already underway on the Opportunity Corridor, and ODOT says it's too late to make any changes. The project is scheduled for completion in 2019. Something drastic will have to change for Cleveland to heed Tregoning’s words and get it "gloriously right" after all. Otherwise, she said, it would be “as if Vibrant NEO never existed.”

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

New Federal Committee Will Push for Transportation Equity By Helping DOT Reckon With Its Past

“No one alive today is necessarily responsible for the origins of the [transportation] inequities that we inherited. But everybody who was alive today and in a position of responsibility, is accountable for what we do about it. That's why we're here.” 

September 28, 2023

Report: America’s Historic Bike Boom is Flatlining

"This growth won't continue forever without being facilitated by more infrastructure investment, [and particularly] safety infrastructure."

September 28, 2023

Wednesday’s Headlines Ask How Much a Life Is Worth

There isn't much of a financial penalty for drivers who kill pedestrians — even if those drivers are cops.

September 27, 2023

‘I’m Not Grieving Alone’: New Play Explores a Father’s Journey After Losing Two Children to Traffic Violence

Colin Campbell and his wife Gail Lerner lost both their children in a car crash with impaired driver. A new play explores how to talk about similar tragedies.

September 27, 2023

How Transit Saved Lives — And Became a Lifeline — During and After the Maui Fires

A Maui bus agency helped transport 42,000 people off the island in the wake of one of the most devastating fires in American history — and highlighted the critical role that shared modes can play not just in preventing climate-related disasters, but saving lives when they happen.

September 27, 2023
See all posts