The city’s Neighborhood Street Fund allows community members and groups to compete for grants they believe will make their streets safer and more accessible to more people.
Of 86 submitted projects, only five or six will likely receive funding. The projects with the best chance in the Central District include a safer crossing for people walking across Union at 19th Ave, an improved crossing of 19th Ave leading to the often-forgotten Pike St Staircase, a sidewalk improvement at Dearborn and Rainier Ave and two crossing improvements on 20th Ave S near Judkins Park (S Charles and S Norman Streets).
The projects were among eight originally submitted for the CD (see below for more details). The Bridging the Gap Oversight Committee is now working to pick their top choices, a decision they will likely make in early August. Details from SDOT:
The Bridging the Gap (BTG) Levy Oversight Committee has begun their final review of projects submitted through the Neighborhood Street Fund (NSF) Large Project program. Funding for the program comes from the nine-year BTG transportation levy adopted by Seattle voters in 2006. The levy provides $4.5M every three years to select, design and construct larger neighborhood projects identified by the community.
Applications for the third and final round of funding for the NSF projects closed in December with more than 86 possible projects submitted from neighborhoods all across the city. Each District Council reviewed projects from their districts and forwarded their top three to the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) for further refinement of the projects. Over the past few months SDOT staff has worked with the project applicants to ensure that their projects meet construction and design standards. In the end, 38 projects will be reviewed. The types of projects submitted ranged from new sidewalks, bike lanes and crossing improvements, to lighting and signal improvements. It is anticipated that 5-7 projects will receive funding.
During the months of June and July, the BTG Levy Oversight Committee will review and rank each project and will make their final recommendations to the Mayor and City Council at their next meeting on August 5. They meet from 6 – 8 p.m., in the Boards and Commissions Room (L-230) at Seattle City Hall. Their meetings are open to the public.
If you would like more information on the projects that have been submitted, please visit here and click on each District for the individual project pages.
More details on the top CD project proposals:
Nsf Central by tfooq
I just finished reading about the 19th/Union and 19th/Pike projects. While I’ve very excited about both, it would a big bummer if the staircase project ends up removing one of the beautiful big maple trees there:
“An existing retaining wall has been damaged by an adjacent tree. Repairs would require removal of the tree.”