West 29th St. in Hingetown is the city's latest target for an open street, one free of car traffic.On Saturday morning, some 40 Clevelanders took over the front seating space of Larder Deli off West 29th Street to discuss what seems to be, regardless of some pushback from a few skeptics, an eager willingess to shut down one of Hingetown's most populated area to vehicles. In planner parlance, make it an"open street.
Since 2022, when City Hall first expressed interest in blocking West 29th off to cars, the question of how to do so has persisted—and also long delayed action. In February, the Cleveland Planning Commission was awarded $100,000 from the Project for Public Spaces, open street advocates based in New York City, for the eventual repurposing of the enclave's prime retail corridor.
Others wrote in their own family-minded suggestions on yellow Post-Its: For potato sack slide races. For a mini golf course. For a"kid's lemonade stand." from applicants so bad grants don't happen," another said. The reasoning, suggested by Madison and confirmed by decades of data, lies in what seems to be a silent crisis through decades of auto dependency. Even today, in 2024, car crashes are a leading cause of death for people aged 1 to 54, theIn Cleveland, where 70 percent of commuters drive, streets often take years to close despite eagerness in the planning department.