The City of Marshfield recently received news that should make a lot of parents with walking kiddos, exercise enthusiasts and bike riders pretty happy.
“Late spring, early summer, we applied for a grant to put a sidewalk-a continuation of a sidewalk…that would basically connect the new 103 interchange down to the school-down Elm Street, Locust and Julian,” explained Sam Rost, City Administrator for Marshfield.
The 2022 Transportation Alternatives Program, also referred to as the TAP grant is federally funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and managed by MO-DOT. There were 93 grant submissions, 84 of which were chosen.
“Marshfield is a very active community,” shared Mayor Natalie McNish. “We do look for safe ways to where we can traverse the city…it’s important to me that our community has a safe way to travel the city other than by vehicle.”
When it came to applying for the grant, it wasn’t a question of whether the city should or not.
“The city recognized over the past several years, just the amount of foot traffic over there and saw the need. We have invested a lot of time and money into the infrastructure already with the trail and sidewalk already going out to the pool out to the 103. It made sense to connect this to the rest of that infrastructure,” explained Rost.
The city was awarded $435,065.60 to be used for the sidewalk addition.
“We will begin the planning phases, we will start working with our engineering firms to plan the rest of the project. Then we will go into right of way acquisition. After we have right of way and the plans we will be able to start bidding documents for construction,” explained Mayor McNish of the process. “So, planning generally takes a solid 8-12 months, I expect that to take place in 2023 and I’m hopeful that construction will start in 2024.”
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