CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland Metroparks system has won an $850,000 Clean Ohio Grant that will help cover a connecting trail between Edgewater and Whiskey Island.
 
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources administers the grant program.
 
This follows receipt of an $8 million federal TIGER grant in late July. The name is an acronym for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery.
 
The state money is not for a bridge that would connect Wendy Park on Whiskey Island to the existing Willow Avenue Bridge.
 
Joe Roszak, the Metroparks chief operating officer, said the trail covered by the state grant will allow people at Edgewater to get to the proposed bridge.
 
That span and the Willow Avenue Bridge will tie the lakefront parks to the Lake Link Trail, which is to designed go south through the west bank of the Flats to the Towpath Trail at Scranton Road Peninsula.
 
The Clean Ohio grant complements the TIGER grant and will cover engineering, design and construction of a 1-mile all-purpose trail that would parallel the roadway called Ed Hauser Way, according to the Metroparks.
 
“As growth in Cleveland’s residential landscape shifts inward, providing opportunities for both transportation and recreation though these new trail connections is a critical need that will greatly enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors, connecting users to the region’s greatest natural resource, Lake Erie,” Cleveland Metroparks CEO Brian Zimmerman said Friday in a press release. 
 
The Cleveland Metroparks now has nearly all of the matching funds required by the federal TIGER grant.
 
Altogether the grants help to join several trail projects along the Cuyahoga River and Cleveland Lakefront.
 
There were 35 organizations applying for the Clean Ohio funds, 22 of whom received grants. The Cleveland Metroparks proposal was one of only four to receive the maximum.



Original Article