[This is an EXCERPT: read the whole article here. -Ed.]

by Steven Litt

[Cleveland] has just acquired a bright and important new asset. The recently completed $200 million rapid transit bus line on Euclid Avenue has turned the city's once-crumbling Main Street into a well-designed image of hope and renewal.

Now you board a shiny custom-designed bus, powered by a hybrid diesel-electric engine, and peer out the windows on a smartly revamped street planted with 1,500 trees and lined with miles of new sidewalks, public art, streetlights and landscaping.

Financed primarily by the state of Ohio and the federal government, the project shows how smart investments in mass transit and public space can help struggling cities turn themselves around.

The project also is a reminder - after the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis and the catastrophic failure of levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina - that America still has the ability to tackle high-quality, large-scale infrastructure projects with style.

Landscape architects from Sasaki Associates in Watertown, Mass., redesigned the avenue from building face to building face to include 5-foot-wide bicycle paths and tapering islands with flower beds at the bus stations.

Squeezing all of that into a relatively narrow right-of-way, without noticeably shrinking sidewalks, took ingenuity and flexibility. RTA initially resisted the idea of bike lanes, but wisely agreed to include them after strong advocacy by the administration of former Mayor Jane Campbell.