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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2021)
4 The Columbia Press May 21, 2021 Trail: City to get new trail, and one completed trail Continued from Page 1 nation of hundreds -- if not thousands -- of cumulative hours of effort on the part of staff, our advisory commit- tees and local agency part- ners,” said Karyn Criswell, head of ODOT’s public trans- portation division. “The rigor and thoughtfulness that our team and our partners bring to iden- tifying and pri- oritizing needs, formulating Criswell project selection criteria that advance our mo- bility, social equity, safety, climate and other goals, and carefully scoring and ranking applications is truly inspiring and frankly, just amazing,” Criswell told staff and others gathered during the trans- portation commission’s on- line meeting. “And you did it all during a pandemic, which added complexity to our pro- cesses.” Warrenton’s project, called the Tansy Point Connec- tion/11th Street Path, won $93,319 and requires a city match of $10,681. City lead- ers already had added the lo- cal match to next fiscal year’s budget. The path creates a new way for people to cross town and connects existing paths in Fort Stevens, with the Ski- panon River Trail and the Warrenton Waterfront Trail. It also joins two sections of the Waterfront Trail at Tansy Point near Warrenton Fiber. “It’s a planned multi-use path that will connect down- town Warrenton with the Tansy Point/Alder Creek ar- eas as well as the Parkview community on Ridge Road,” The new trail along the undeveloped 11th Street begins at the south end of the KOA Campground (above) and ends at North- west Warrenton Drive (below). said Hallie Sweet, a Warren- ton Public Works employee who has worked on the proj- ect. “This gives them a safer route directly to downtown.” While final plans for the trail aren’t complete, the por- tion along 11th Street likely will be paved and accessible by foot, bicycle or horseback only. Today it is an undevel- oped and inaccessible county right-of-way that runs along the south end of the KOA, heads east through the Bral- lier Swamp and beside a por- tion of Tansy Creek before ending at Northwest Warren- ton Drive across from Alder Creek Village. Astoria’s project, also fund- ed through Oregon Commu- nity Paths, will extend light- ing on the Riverwalk toward the east. The $844,843 proj- ect requires a local match from the city of $96,696. Also last week, the Oregon Transportation Commission approved several proposals from Sunset Empire Trans- portation District, includ- ing $784,000 to beef up the Lower Columbia Connector bus route, and $60,000 for a marketing plan. The first Sunset Empire project falls under the 2021- 23 Statewide Transportation Improvement Funds cate- gory, an initiative created by legislation in 2017 and funded in large part by a one- tenth of 1 percent payroll transit tax. The marketing plan will be funded by a state transporta- tion planning grant.
