Lafayette moves Connecting Lafayette sidewalks toward construction; School Street, Topper Lane designs refined

The Lafayette Transportation and Circulation Commission on Nov. 3 received a staff update on the Connecting Lafayette: Downtown Pathways and Schools Safety Project, a multi-segment sidewalk and streetscape program focused on School Street and Topper Lane that staff said is intended to improve safety and access to downtown and local schools.

Pat Buttroff, engineering services manager, said the city has assembled a package of funding "We have a total of $4,600,000 for this project, and currently, we're estimating the cost at about $4,300,000," and listed Measure J ($370,000), an OBAG 3 federal grant ($750,000), a federal earmark (stated in the presentation as $3,100,000,000), and $400,000 in local development fees as contributors to the budget.

The project scope includes a 10-foot-wide sidewalk on School Street with a 2-foot landscape strip fitted for bioretention and a multi-width pathway on Topper Lane varying between 6 feet where feasible and 4 feet in constrained locations to preserve large trees. Buttroff said the design team and a resident subcommittee worked to retain healthy trees where possible and that an arborist reviewed tree conditions; the arborist…