Olean council backs $25 million RAISE grant application for West State Street project

The Olean Common Council voted Feb. 25, 2025 to endorse a $25 million RAISE discretionary grant application to rebuild West State Street and fund multimodal improvements and water and sewer upgrades along the corridor.

The resolution (PL 22-25) asks the U.S. Department of Transportation to fund a connected-communities, multimodal vision for West State Street, a corridor the resolution says has not been fully reconstructed since 1896 and crosses the City of Olean, the town of Allegany and St. Bonaventure University. "This is a main critical infrastructure ... critical to the revitalization of the city of Olean," Alderman Crawford said while reading the resolution. City officials and council members noted the application is based on a concept plan required for the grant application and that engineering, outreach and design steps would follow if the award is received.

Council members raised concerns about specific design elements mentioned in the concept, such as bump-outs or roundabouts, and were reassured by Mayor Aiello that the concept is preliminary and that public meetings, engineering review and opportunities for input would follow. Council members also noted uncertainty in federal funding levels and urged local advocacy; one speaker asked that the county legislature consider a companion resolution.

The resolution was reported out of committee and adopted by the council; it directs city staff to proceed with the grant application and follow-up engineering and community outreach if funded. Council members discussed the possibility of restricting project overage costs from being charged to certain local budgets but recorded no binding cost-shifting language at the meeting.

The council also asked staff to send certified copies to congressional and Senate offices as part of outreach supporting the request for discretionary funding.