OH: Revised Browns traffic plan goes to NOACA with add of $40M rail station; more study may be required

Revised plans for transportation upgrades tied to the Cleveland Browns’ proposed new stadium in Brook Park now include a potential $40 million commuter rail station. But regional planners may require a broader traffic study before deciding whether to sign off on any of the improvements.

A $122.2 million infrastructure plan, sponsored by the city of Brook Park, is scheduled to go before the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency’s Planning and Programming Committee on Friday.

Approval by the full NOACA board is possible as early as December, but that would first require clearing both the planning committee and then NOACA’s executive committee in November.

Though the plan details how traffic concerns - including those for airport traffic - would be addressed through a combination of highway ramp improvements and new roads and bridges, a larger, multi-city study may still be required.

“We are interested in a regional look, with adjoining communities, so that we capture all of the effect of this,” Grace Gallucci, NOACA’s executive director, said during an interview on Monday.

NOACA has a say over changes to the transportation infrastructure, not whether the stadium is built, Gallucci noted.

Brook Park has approved zoning changes and is negotiating with the team over both the creation of a special community authority to own the facility, and for the use of admissions and other site-generated city taxes toward construction costs.

The projected estimate for transportation work is above and beyond the stadium’s $2.4 billion price tag - of which the state is covering $600 million.

Though approval of the transportation plan from the five-county regional planning agency is necessary, Gallucci said it is separate from the state’s decision on whether to provide funding through the Ohio’s Transportation Review Advisory Council, known as TRAC. NOACA, however, shares its priorities with TRAC.

Brook Park pursues funding

Brook Park is seeking $70.3 million in TRAC money for the pedestrian and road improvements, with the Browns promising to cover more than $11 million in largely pre-construction engineering costs. A potential source for the $40 million rail station has not been identified, according to NOACA documents.

The proposal before NOACA said about two-thirds of gameday traffic is expected to come from south of Snow Road, a pattern it said raises concerns about congestion at Interstate 71 and Snow Road near the airport. The airport is undergoing its own $1.6 billion modernization, and local officials have warned that stadium traffic could worsen existing chokepoints.

Those traffic concerns would be addressed, in part, through proposed improvements to the Snow Road interchange with I-71, the application said.

New Red Line link possible

The rail station proposal is the most significant change in plans first outlined by the team in April.

The new commuter rail stop would be on the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s Red Line, closer to the stadium than the existing Brookpark Road station roughly a mile away, according to a NOACA staff analysis prepared for Friday’s meeting.

The goal is to give fans and workers a direct transit option and reduce pressure on surrounding roadways. A conceptual design has been developed, in consultation with RTA.

Other parts of the plan, previously announced, include:

• I-71 north exit ramp improvements at Snow Road, including adding an additional turn lane and ramp widening to manage the expected influx of south-to-north gameday traffic.
• I-71 south exit improvements at Snow Road, with the addition of a 600-foot bridge over CSX freight lines to a new stadium ring road.
• A 5,300-foot ring road east and south of the development site, which would include reconstruction of Engle Road. This would be between Brookpark and Snow roads.
• Pedestrian bridge and walkway improvements, connecting anticipated off-site parking areas northeast of the stadium site.

These improvements, according to the Brook Park application, are necessary to accommodate not only the stadium but also nearby public and private developments that rely on the same infrastructure network.

Those include the airport modernization, the planned $250 million Blue Abyss research facility near NASA Glenn Research Center, and other redevelopment in the area.

Questions remain

Whether NOACA will approve the current plan as presented is uncertain. Staff recommendations include the need of both a broader traffic study and more details about parking and transit.

The Haslam Sports Group, the Browns’ parent organization, said it welcomed the opportunity to keep working through the details.

“We appreciate the feedback we’ve received throughout our process from NOACA. We have more infrastructure improvement meetings scheduled with stakeholders later this month and look forward to more engagement with the community as our process evolves and plans are finalized,” a spokesperson said.

While the revised proposal includes more detail than an earlier version discussed by NOACA in June - when the NOACA board opted not to make a recommendation while it awaited more thorough information - staff noted delays in promised details.

“A comprehensive traffic study needs to be completed,” NOACA staff wrote in a summary ahead of Friday’s meeting. “... At a virtual meeting held with NOACA staff and Brook Park representatives and staff on July 22, it was stated that the traffic study would be completed by mid-August.”

Staff also recommended a study covering where people would park off-site, beyond the 12,000 to 13,000 parking spaces planned on the site of the 67,500-seat stadium. “It is unclear where necessary off-site parking” would be located in the vicinity of Engle Road, West 164th Street and Brookpark Road, staff wrote.

The need for those extra spaces, however, could be reduced with either the new rail station, or frequent shuttle service between the stadium and the existing Brookpark Road station, staff said.

The Haslam Sports Group has said it plans to begin construction early next year, with an opening in time for the start of the 2029 NFL season. Site preparation work started last week.

The team still faces a pending lawsuit filed by Cleveland seeking to block the move from the city-owned lakefront stadium. A separate suit filed by two former Democratic state officials questions the legality of the state setting aside $600 million in unclaimed funds for the project.

And the city of Cleveland has filed notice of an appeal of a recent Ohio Department of Transportation ruling, which granted a waiver to permit the the stadium to rise 221 above the ground in the vicinity of the airport.

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