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SALT to taste: The state Route 44/Prospect Street Corridor will be the focus of Ravenna's Safe Alternatives: Less Traffic (SALT) study. The corridor extends through central Portage County including downtown Ravenna, shown above. The city, together with the townships of Ravenna and Rootstown, received a Connecting Communities Planning Grant from AMATS.

AMATS awarded its two Connecting Communities Planning Grants to the Village of Boston Heights and the city of Ravenna.

The agency received 11 applications for the Connecting Communities Planning Grant from communities across Portage and Summit counties.  The grant program funds planning studies that focus on promoting more transportation choices, enhancing economic competitiveness and supporting existing neighborhoods.  Mobility Planner Heather Davis Reidl says that the program provides two $50,000 grants to help communities develop transportation plans and studies that promote vibrant, livable communities.

“We hope to build on the momentum of the program as it enters its second year.  This year’s recipients – Boston Heights and Ravenna – presented innovative proposals that met the goals that we’re pursuing for the Greater Akron area,” Davis Reidl says.

A portion of state Route 8, shown above, extends through the Village of Boston Heights in northern Summit County.

Boston Heights will develop a comprehensive land use and transportation plan that will include a development strategy for the village’s state Route 8 corridor.  The plan will analyze all aspects of traffic – vehicular, transit, bicycle and pedestrian – to develop traffic management strategies.  The plan will also address how to connect the village’s residential, commercial and municipal areas, including potential pedestrian and bicycle access to the nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail, and the Metro Parks Bike & Hike Trail.

Ravenna – in concert with the townships of Ravenna and Rootstown – will pursue its Safe Alternatives: Less Traffic (SALT) study of the state Route 44/Prospect Street Corridor, which extends through central Portage County.  The study will present options to promote transit use and safe pedestrian and bicycle traffic within this five-mile, heavily travelled corridor.

The agency’s Policy Committee selected the recipients during its Dec. 7 meeting.  Davis Reidl says that the studies by last year’s recipients – Richfield’s Crossroad of Commerce & Community Study and the joint Akron-METRO Downtown Akron Connectivity Study – will be completed in the coming months.

If you would like to view summaries of Ravenna’s SALT Study and the Village of Boston Heights’ comprehensive land use and transportation plan, please click here.

For additional information, please call 330-375-2436 or send an email to amats@akronohio.gov.