WHO? Greenwood Sidewalks is a grassroots neighborhood group working on a plan to make it easier, faster, and cheaper to get our neighborhood connected with sidewalks. There are currently about 200 blocks in Greenwood without sidewalks.
WHAT? This is an application for City of Seattle, Department of Neighborhoods Large Project Funds. It is a planning project that would produce a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know go about getting sidewalks including information about all the different kinds of street edges, planting strips / buffers, sidewalks, and drainage solutions out there including traditional and lower cost attractive alternative approaches, what they cost, how to pay for them, who can build them, the environmental implications of each type, and what kind of maintenance they need to keep them looking good and working well. We produce a 2:1 match of their money ($100K) with the value of our time ($50K) and supplement the cash needed for the project with other sources of money including possible funding from the city, county, state ($35K - $100K).
WHEN? Our application deadline is April 14th. If we are awarded funds, we will start the project sometime close to the fall. The project will take about a year. We plan to follow up the project with an effort to build a series of demonstration blocks so that we can showcase the many types of solutions available to us which hopefully will inspire others to jump on board with a plan for their block. We need 10 – 20 blocks to participate in those pilot demonstration projects.
WHERE? Here in Greenwood. The project boundaries are N 85th St to the south, 8th Ave NW to the west, Holman Rd / 105th to the north, and Aurora Ave N to the east.
HOW? Consultants will be hired to lead the project, but it’s the people on the 200 blocks without sidewalks that make it happen with their willingness to participate as community volunteers, through materials donations and by giving their professional expertise to leverage the consultant’s time.
