Looks like the Fish Lake Trail nabbed enough stimulus money to begin work on paving a few more miles this spring. Now we just need to get Iron Bridge going. This news comes today from Paul Kropp (There is a link to a great pdf with all the stimulus funding at the end of this post):

Folks:

SRTC will be issuing a press release about this too, but FYI the SRTC
board today approved the allocation of “stimulus” funding for the Fish
Lake trail to be $308,679 + $469,638, which — I believe — makes this
portion of the City of Spokane’s total trail project virtually whole.

The second amount is the remainder of total funds available to Spokane
County jurisdictions after the top priority big-ticket construction
projects identified by SRTC for federal stimulus monies passed through
the state are fully funded.

The decision to allocate the remainder to a so-called enhancement
project (“non-motorized”) ensures that the City of Spokane will not
lose $1 million of funds already made available from the state subject
to a match. This portion of the Fish Lake Trail is roughly a $2
million project and the whole trail is undoubtedly of regional
significance.

I have attached a PDF file to show the full list of ARRA projects that
were approved today. (Tier 2 items are backup projects to cover the
remote possibility that Tier 1 projects cannot meet funding
requirements and need a substitute in order to retain the funding.)

srtc-arra-projects
—
Paul Kropp pkropp Spokane, WA

The post Good News For The Fish Lake Trail appeared first on Out There Venture.

Trying to follow the stimulus package transportation dollars and whether or not they will result in new bike/ped construction in Spokane this year is complicated! Here the latest news (this information comes straight from SRTC’s very helpful Jeff Selle):

– Spokane Regional Transportation Council received $10.1 million in direct funds from the transportation stimulus money. Of that $308K had to go directly to bike/ped enhancement projects

– The SRTC Technical Committee met yesterday and decided to recommend allocation of that $308 to the Fish Lake Trail so that the project can begin immediately and won’t risk losing the $1 million already allocated towards it. Fish Lake Trails has $1.3 million in funding now but still needs $700K for final paving. Work will proceed, but paving won’t happen unless they find more funds.

– 5-Mile Prairie Road Improvements were allocated $1.25 million which means the entire 5-mile project can be completed, including new bike lanes.

– Other projects that the Technical Committee recommended to the SRTC board: $450k for Rutter Parkway Bridge, $2.8 million for Spokane Valley Sprague repaving (which includes pedestrian enhancements and traffic calming), $1.4 to Havana St. overpass, and $1.75 million to the Deer Park Crawford Rd. project. This leaves $1 million left over that hasn’t been recommended for allocation yet. Might be great to lobby the SRTC board on how this should be spent.

A totally unrelated Federal safety grant for $619K was announced by the City of Spokane two days ago that will pay just for downtown Spokane Biking improvements, included lane striping. This means 3 or the 5 Smart Routes bike project are getting full or partial funding for 2009. But there still more to do! Right now the legislature is debating what to do with another $11 million dollars of transportation enhancement money (that the pile of money that bike/ped projects get funded out of.) Westside politicians want to take ALL of this money for some west side beautification project! They must be stopped! If we got even $500K we could pay for the entire Iron Bridge project. Another $700k would complete the Fish Lake Trail paving.

Barb Chamberlain has put together this handy cheat sheet for contacting the legislators involved with making that decision. Contact them today and tell them we need our projects funded:

This is a negotiation that does not yet have a bill number.

Given that, go ahead and use either the email form links I sent previously, or the direct email addresses and office numbers listed below.

It’s great if you customize your message to talk specifically about which project is most important to you, or general bike/ped information, while keeping it short. The email form allows 4000 characters, and my draft language is well within that limit.

House:
Rep. John Driscoll:
driscoll.john@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=H&District=6&Position=2
Office: (360) 786-7962

Rep. Don Cox:
cox.don@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=H&District=9&Position=1
Office: (360) 786-7942

Rep. Alex Wood:
wood.alex@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=H&District=3&Position=1
Office: (360) 786-7888

Rep. Matt Shea:
shea.matt@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=H&District=4&Position=2
Office: (360) 786-7984

Senate:
Sen. Chris Marr:
marr.chris@leg.wa.gov
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/memberemail/MailForm.aspx?Chamber=S&District=6
Office: (360) 786-7610

The post Stimulus Money Update–You Can Help appeared first on Out There Venture.

This editorial appears in the December issue of OTM. The more discussion we get about active transportation projects in stimulus bills the more likely they are to be included.

“Shovel–ready” is my favorite new catch phrase. The term is meant to denote a project that is ready to put bodies to work the instant funds are released, no further planning necessary. Smart municipalities are constantly updating and cataloguing their transportation projects to meet the shovel-ready criteria and that’s why any economic stimulus package that goes through will have a big transportation component meant to create jobs immediately.

If you love active transportation (walking and biking) this is an incredible opportunity. Across the country, communities are promoting active transportation like never before and there is good chance many shovel-ready active transportation projects could be funded by an economic stimulus package. The Spokane Regional Transportation Council has identified five local projects that are shovel ready: 1) The Fish Lake Trail, 2) 5-Mile Prairie Bike Lanes, 3) Ben Burr East Central Trail Extension, 4) Iron Bridge, and 5) Downtown Spokane Bicycle Improvements which includes lanes and parking. All of these could probably be done for the cost of a few days worth of concrete on the North-South Freeway, Spokane County’s current number one transportation priority.

The fact that the SRTC has such an excellent list of bike/ped projects ready to go is an astounding turnaround from 18 months ago when the organization almost didn’t send a representitive to the National Rails-To-Trails Conference—one of the biggest bike/ped gatherings in the country—when it happened in our own backyard, Portland, Oregon. Clearly active transportation is becoming a higher priority here.

But funding is far from a done deal. There are three stimulus proposals that could affect Spokane: a possible state stimulus, a possible federal lame-duck bill this month, and an almost certain federal stimulus when the new administration takes office in 2009. Jeff Sele, Manager of Government affairs at SRTC, calls it “A perfect storm of transportation funding.” But he also warns that the criteria for funding is far from certain. Now is the time to contact your municipalities and tell them you want active transportation projects funded, specifically Mark Richards and Todd Meilke, the County Commissioners who sit on the SRTC board. It wouldn’t hurt to contact Greater Spokane Incorporated as well, as they have one of the biggest lobbying operations on behalf of Spokane. If we could get these projects done now and get SmartRoutes 2010 funding our bike/ped infrastructure could leapfrog cities like Boulder, Colorado.

I like to think big.

——————————————————
JON SNYDER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
editor@outtheremonthly.ziplinestaging.com

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