Clayton council hears Active Transportation Plan presentation; consultants outline 28 policy items and project priorities

Consultants from Toole Design presented the draft Clayton Active Transportation Plan to the Clayton City Council at a workshop, outlining policy recommendations and a multi-year project list intended to improve walking and bicycling across the city.

The presentation, opened by city project staff, said the plan was funded through a 2023 grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation and grew from a steering committee process that included school and regional partners. Planner Carly Good said the plan organizes work into vision and goals, community engagement, existing-conditions analysis, a prioritized project list and implementation steps. "Active transportation is that walking, biking, any human-powered mode of transportation," Good said, noting the plan also addresses e-bikes and assisted-mobility devices.

Why it matters: council members heard that adopting the plan would make Clayton eligible for state Safe Routes to School funding and position the city to compete for other grants. Good said the plan "does make you eligible for state Safe Routes to School funding, so you're required to have a plan in place to be able to apply for those grants." The plan's analyses — equity mapping, level-of-traffic-stress, 10-year crash data and a livability assessment — were cited as the basis for recommendations.

Key recommendations and details: the consultants reported 28 program and policy recommendations grouped by goal, plus infrastructure recommendations that include about 10 crossing improvements, roughly 3 miles of sidewalks (primarily along Main Street), about 6 miles of neighborhood bikeways (signed or striped routes) and roughly 28 miles of bikeways and shared-use paths. The team presented a preliminary opinion of probable construction cost for extending the National Road shared-use path from the middle school to the city’s western boundary to support grant applications and funding requests.

Two corridors were examined in greater detail. For National Road the team provided cost estimates intended to help secure grants; for Old Salem Road (near Northmore Elementary) they offered a traffic-calming toolkit — speed cushions, curb extensions, speed humps and raised crossings — and noted that separated bike lanes or a shared-use path are options where space and funding allow.

Council questions and staff responses: council members requested the full prioritization list and the complete plan appendices; the consultants committed to providing the full file. Elected officials asked how frequently bikeways on major streets are used and whether marking neighborhood bikeways requires street widening; the consultants said separated facilities are usually necessary on higher-speed roads for wider usage, while neighborhood bikeways are often implemented as signed/striped routes rather than through widening. Council members also raised safety issues, including sidewalk “dead ends,” drainage grates that can endanger skinny-tire bicycles and local resistance to curb extensions in areas prone to vehicle impacts.

Next steps: consultants and staff said adoption by the council and subsequent project-specific design and funding would follow; staff indicated Amanda holds the final plan and appendices and will distribute the full package to council. No formal action to adopt the plan was taken at the workshop. A motion to adjourn closed the session.

What remains unresolved: the council asked for a detailed prioritization list and unit-cost estimates for specific projects; staff and the consultant said those materials will be provided but no schedule for adoption was set in the recorded discussion.