A few quick items:
Waterfront - yesterday the DDA voted to hire a team to engineer the waterfront improvements discussed on this site. (see http://planfortc.com/2009/12/07/update-for-the-week-of-december-7-to-13/ ) The team includes local engineers from URS, along with premier landscape architects the Johnson Hill Land Ethics Studio, the Baird firm that worked on the Chicago lakefront, and pedestrian/bicycle/traffic-calming expert Ian Lockwood, who the city recently hired to re-design Division St and who will now also work on crossings for Grandview Parkway. The engineering work will include two public work sessions and an open house. A link to the team’s slide presentation will be here as soon as it is available. The reason why the DDA voted on this is because 95% of the funding for the engineering work is coming from the DDA – their effort to contribute to a project for the entire city.
Once the project is designed and engineered, we expect to apply for grants from the MI Natural Resources Trust Fund (up to $500,000), Rotary Charities, the Great Lakes Fishery Trust, and others. Rotary has already hired a grant writer to investigate all possible funding sources and that matrix is being put together. The city commission could consider in May whether to put a proposal on the ballot to use Brown Bridge Trust Fund dollars to leverage this grant money (and possibly create a sustainable fund for other park needs in the city). The final decision to hire the URS team will be made by the city commission on March 1.
8th St - thanks to the TC Area Chamber of Commerce, Senator Jason Allen, and Rep Wayne Schmidt, City Manager Ben Bifoss and I have an appointment with the Director of MDOT this coming Thurs to discuss trying to work bicycle and pedestrian elements into the 8th St project as it moves forward under the existing schedule. The contractor for the project, Kal Excavating, has been very good about trying to work with us to create a win-win situation for stimulus dollars, the city master plan, and the Grand Vision. We will have an update here soon.
Future street projects - last Wed night, the Planning Commission and DDA had a joint meeting about capital projects in the city. The chairman of the Planning Commission, Fred Wilmeth, suggested that capital projects in the city, which are now approved mostly as a line item in a budget, should come back to the Planning Commission for plan review after they are designed and engineered but before contracts are signed. The purpose of the review would be to ensure that all projects conform to the city’s master plan. This is an excellent suggestion, one that would provide for public review and citizen oversight before projects are let. We hope the Planning Commission and City Commission will enact an ordinance to do this in the coming weeks.
Tomorrow: my two cents on biomass.
5 comments
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February 26, 2010 at 8:05 am
GLHowe
Yesterday, the city and Senator Jason Allen and Rep Wayne Schmidt met with MDOT and the FHWA over the 2010 8th Street project. Not a lot of initial movement on specifics, but after talking to the mayor and hearing feedback by the regional MDOT representative, it’s my understanding that there is an opportunity.
As the mayor said, “we didn’t hit a home-run, but we’re on base.”
There is a ‘process’ to evaluate certain changes, like bike lanes, improved crosswalks and narrower lanes. It won’t be perfect, but it can be better than the current design. I have a longer post about this at MyWHaT.
February 21, 2010 at 11:55 am
Jennifer
Great update – so glad to hear the Planning Commission will be reviewing engineering before projects are let. It’s a step in the right direction.
February 20, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Brian Haas
Good updates. Nice to know things are getting done — whether they are little or ‘grand scale’ — all working towards the same end result.
February 20, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Nloan Davies
To much inforation about little things and nothing being done on a grand scale. So what.
February 21, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Carol Danly
Thank you, Mayor Bzbok, for keeping us in the loop regarding all the important issues covered in this post. I’ve been watching the discussions regarding 8th Street but not gotten around to commenting. Better late than never:
As a busy citizen who works full time and volunteers in the community, when I travel around town I usually want to take the quickest route–to make the best use of my valuable time. This is true whether I am riding my bike, which I do frequently, or traveling via automobile. Connecting the dots by piecing together sections of the TART trail and the cross town bicycle route to get to my destination just does not cut it. If 8th Street is the route I’d take by car, it’s probably also the route I want to take with my bicycle. I look forwarding to hearing the outcome of the MDOT conversation and hope we are able to do the 8th Street renovation in such as to benefit all methods of transportation.