City dusts off plan to route bike trail under tracks
The City of Port Washington will apply for a grant to pay for a new leg of the Ozaukee Interurban Trail that would take bicyclists off city streets in an industrial area of the community.
The Board of Public Works on Tuesday endorsed the idea of applying for the grant for the bike path, a project that has been on the books for more than a decade.
The bike path project would connect the bike path between Oakland Avenue and Park Street, taking bicyclists off city streets and instead channeling them along the We Energies right of way and under the railroad tracks.
Public Works Director Rob Vanden Noven suggested the project, saying it is likely to score high on two of the four criteria for the grant applications — economic impact and connectivity.
“I honestly do feel the project I’m proposing would score highly,” he said, an important factor since there is expected to be significant competition for the state multimodal grants.
Ozaukee County has compiled an economic impact statement for the bike path in the past, Vanden Noven said, and the city could piggyback on that for its application.
The fact the project would take bike traffic off of the streets and provide a more direct route enhances the score for that portion of the application, he said.
The city is likely to apply for a grant of between $250,000 and $500,000, Vanden Noven said. The city match would be 10% of the grant, he said, adding Be3, a local fitness group, has provided some funding that could go toward this.
Members of the board said the bike trail project is a worthy candidate.
“This (project) has been around since the bike path was proposed,” Ald. John Sigwart, a board member, said. “It’s a wonderful project. This is a big gap in the bike path.”
Oakland Avenue is “really rough,” Sigwart noted, adding “riding a bike down there must be really rough.”
Ald. Mike Gasper, a member of the board, said, “I would love to see this happen.”
But Gasper warned that it won’t be easy. It’s unlikely the city will get permission from the railroad to build an underpass, he said, adding the railroad may consider a bridge over the tracks.
He said the railroad may need to be a secondary sponsor of the project, something Vanden Noven said might be the end of the project, given how long it typically takes the railroad to act on requests.
“I think this has a shot,” Sigwart said.
Gasper also suggested that the city consider applying for the grant to help fund the painting of the lighthouse, a project that has been estimated to cost more than $1 million.
“I would shoot for the moon and apply for painting the lighthouse,” he said. “That’s going to be really expensive.”
The expense is due not only to the lighthouse’s location at the end of the breakwater but also to the fact that it’s costly to remediate the lead paint that currently coats the structure.
Vanden Noven said he considered that but believes painting would be viewed as a maintenance project, which isn’t allowed under the grant criteria.
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