Elon’s town council has given municipal staff members the go-ahead to seek federal funds for pedestrian-friendly improvements that appear in the town’s sundry infrastructure development plans.
The council approved a resolution on Tuesday that allows the town’s staff to request grants for three separate projects that are detailed in either Elon’s “multimodal plan” or its vision for the redevelopment of the Haggard Avenue corridor. These projects include the proposed construction of sidewalks and multiuse paths along Haggard and Williamson avenues as well as an interjurisdictional venture with Gibsonville that would accommodate bikes and pedestrians along West Haggard Avenue and Burlington Road.
The council has given staff members the all-clear to submit each of these projects to a federal program called RAISE – or Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity. According to Elon’s town manager Richard Roedner, this program could potentially foot the proposed infrastructure improvements with no need for a match from the town since all three of the candidate projects are located in areas deemed rural or low-income.
Roedner indicated that the financial support of a program like RAISE will be crucial to the town’s ability to proceed with these projects – each of which is expected to cost millions of dollars to bring to fruition. The town manager also acknowledged that this particular grant program will allow the projects to bypass the brutal scoring system that the state’s transportation department uses to guide its own funding decisions.
“These are federal funds so they wouldn’t have to go through the STIP [or State Transportation Improvement Plan] process,” Roedner assured to town council. “But we would still need to work out any easements [with the state] to allow this work to take place in their right-of-way.”
The council went on vote 5-to-0 in favor of the aforementioned resolution.
