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Finance committee backs $843,000 Safe Streets supplemental appropriation for citywide mobility plan and Forest Drive demos
Summary
The finance committee gave a favorable recommendation to SA 2226 to appropriate $683,200 in federal Safe Streets for All funds plus about $160,000 from capital reserves to fund an 18-month citywide mobility action plan; members sought accounting clarifications and staff will follow up on overhead postings and consultant participation.
The finance standing committee on June 3 recommended a favorable recommendation for SA 2226, a supplemental appropriation that would use $683,200 from the Federal Highway Administration (Safe Streets for All) and roughly $159,700 from the city’s capital reserve to fund a citywide mobility action plan and demonstration projects. Committee members approved the recommendation by voice vote after extended questions about accounting and project scope.
Eric Lashinsky, chief of comprehensive planning, told the committee the grant supports the city’s first citywide mobility action plan, an 18-month planning effort that includes broad community participation, an updated bike master plan, a complete-streets manual to inform future code changes and a high-injury network to prioritize safety work. Lashinsky said approximately $240,000 of the grant budget is allocated for short-term demonstration projects on Forest Drive, with the remaining funds directed to consultant-led planning, maps and outreach. He described the demonstration approach as quick-build, temporary changes that require before-and-after data collection.
Committee members led by Alderman Thorp pressed staff on how the $159,700 capital reserve contribution is recorded and how the city’s 5% capital overhead is applied. Suzanne Flity of the Budget Department said the decision to treat the grant as a capital project was made by staff and that about $600,000 remained in the capital reserve before this appropriation. The city manager said overhead charged to grants typically funds administrative infrastructure required by grant rules rather than adding new permanent staff, but agreed to provide a clearer general-ledger breakdown at a later briefing.
Members asked whether the selected consultant team should participate in Eastport road-by-road meetings this summer; Lashinsky recommended at least some consultant involvement and said the team would revisit the 2016 Eastport study as a starting point. Committee members also urged clearer public communications about temporary demonstration treatments — including timelines and QR-code links to project pages — and noted the federal grant requires before/after evaluations and often a minimum 12-month demonstration window.
After the discussion, the committee moved and seconded a favorable recommendation on SA 2226; members voted in favor by voice. Staff said the council would be involved in adoption if the plan reaches that stage and that the plan is intended primarily as a guiding document rather than an immediate regulatory change.
Next steps: the committee asked finance staff to provide ledger-level detail on how overhead and the capital reserve transfers are recorded; planning staff will continue outreach and coordinate consultant participation in community meetings.
