Yesterday 11 neighborhood projects were selected and funded by Bridging the Gap (BTG) through the Neighborhood Street Fund Large Project program. These projects will be designed and built over the next 3 years. The Lander Festival street project was on of the projects built during the last three year funding cycle.
The 11 projects are:
- Fairview Ave E and Fairview Ave N Intersection
- Garfield Superblock 23rd Avenue East
- N 143rd St between Palatine and Aurora Ave
- Maynard Ave between S Jackson St and S Dearborn St
- Ravenna Ave NE between 85th Ave NE and Lake City Way
- 13th Avenue NW between NW 90th Street and Holman Road
- S Orcas Street between Beacon Ave S and MLK Jr Way
- 25th Avenue SW from SW Brandon St to SW Juneau St
- S Othello Street between Seward Park Ave & Chief Sealth Trail
- California Ave SW at SW Holden, SW Othello, SW Frontenac and SW Findlay Sts
- 33rd Avenue NE between NE 125th St and NE 130th St
The press release after the jump:
SEATTLE – Mayor Mike McGinn today announced 11 projects that will be constructed through the Neighborhood Street Fund Large Project program. Utilizing funds from the voter-approved Bridging the Gap (BTG) transportation levy, the city will invest $4.7 million over the next three years in these new projects.
“The Neighborhood Street Fund is a great way for neighborhood leaders to identify and fund small projects that can make a big difference locally,” said McGinn. “Every neighborhood plan identifies safe and walkable streets as a high priority – this fund supports that priority.”
Residents of Seattle’s neighborhoods proposed 37 projects, which were reviewed by the city’s 13 district councils and ultimately vetted by the citizen-driven BTG Levy Oversight Committee. Mayor McGinn approved the committee’s recommendation of 11 projects worth $4.7 million, ranging from new blocks of sidewalks to bike improvements and from pedestrian crossing enhancements to new planting strips. (A list of the works is attached.) Projects were evaluated based on criteria such as cost, investment impact, quality of life enhancement, safety, geographic distribution and Pedestrian Master Plan scoring.
“These projects went through a rigorous, competitive process and reflect the priorities of the neighborhoods,” stated Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, Transportation Committee chair. “Seattle taxpayers will soon see the projects underway in their neighborhoods.”
The Neighborhood Street Fund Large Project Program provides approximately $1.5 million annually to community based projects. The program is on a three-year cycle allowing neighborhoods to build larger projects with greater impacts on walking and biking. Works selected in 2010 will be designed in 2011 and constructed in 2012. During the first three-year cycle completed in 2009, the city invested six million dollars in 17 large projects across Seattle.
“The Neighborhood Street Fund is a key element of Bridging the Gap, it brings forward neighborhood driven projects that will have positive impacts on the community,” said Ref Lindmark, co-chair of the BTG Levy Oversight Committee. “The committee is excited about these projects and the role we played in selecting them for funding.”
The Lander Festival Street is done??? There’s nothing but a wide sidewalk next to a blank parking garage wall and another dull building across the wide street. The block looks very white and concrete-y. How is that a festival?
I thought the same thing the first time I saw it. ST seems to have a real fetish for vast swaths of the cold, the stark, and the sterile.
Parking garage? There’s no parking garage there — it’s Beacon Hill Station and its associated buildings.
But, granted, the Festival street is a bit weak. That will, hopefully, change when El Centro gets their south lot developed. And it would have been nice to limit auto traffic through that street, but noooooo, can’t have that.
I’m still waiting for busy streets to be repaired like I was promised when we voted for “Bridging the Gap.” Why haven’t N. 105th Street between I-5 and Aurora, and N. 85th between I-5 and 15th NW been repaired? They’ve been cracked, rutted and potholed for more than 8 years. If SDOT would focus more on streets than sidewalks and bike lanes, they’d make a LOT more people happy.
Both of those streets are on SDOT’s paving to-do list. The sad truth is that there are a ton of badly neglected roads around town, and only so many paving crews. 15th Ave NE, for example, is probably in worse condition than the average third-world road, so it makes sense that it’s higher on the to-do list.