Improvements are coming to the Cushman Trail gap — and it won’t come out of the City of Gig Harbor’s budget, a project engineer said Monday.
The council voted Monday night to enter into a $140,000 agreement with the state Department of Transportation to fund design and construction of the current gap in the Cushman Trail.
The trail gaps at the Hollycroft Street trailhead and Soundview Drive.
The city wouldn’t have been able to take on the project without the state’s help, city engineer Marcos McGraw said.
“We as a city did not anticipate doing the work, and we do not have city funds to do the work,” McGraw said.
Gig Harbor Mayor Chuck Hunter said the improvements should help improve safety on the gap.
“It’ll be a great thing,” Hunter said. “Make it more of a continuous trail instead of a ‘where do I go from here?’ ”
The proposed project includes upgrading sidewalks, asphalt overlay, ramp improvements and directional signs for the trail.
New sidewalks would be 10 feet wide and put in place along the east side of Soundview Drive, from the intersection at Hollycroft Street to the Cushman Trail crosswalk.
Asphalt will be placed on Hollycroft Street from Olympic Drive to Soundview Drive. Crews also will re-stripe the same area for two vehicle and two bicycle lanes.
Asphalt reconditioning will have to be done before the winter months, McGraw said.
The project does not have a set finish date, but McGraw said state funding ends after spring 2010.
The council also held its first reading of two ordinances that would overhaul the city’s current codes on stormwater, grading and civil permits.
Jeff Langhelm, the city’s senior engineer, said the ordinances essentially would adopt a new 1,200-page stormwater manual.
Some of the main changes in the code would include a list of legal and illegal discharges into the city’s stormwater system. It would include run-off from washing cars and other chemicals that end up in the storm drains, Langhelm said.
“You can wash your car, it just can’t run into the stormwater system,” Langhelm said.
Langhelm told the council that, if the new code is adopted, most infractions would be “enforced through education” rather than civil penalties.
Council member Jim Franich showed concern over the proposed code’s future implications.
“Further down the line, I can see this as more of an issue,” Franich said. “Some of these things are a bit overbearing.”
Another code revision would adopt Pierce County’s stormwater manual. Adoption of a manual similar to the county’s would create a more consistent guideline for engineers and developers, Langhelm said.
The city’s current manual is based on Kitsap County’s manual.
Other proposed code revisions include, but are not limited to: consolidating drainage permits to a single civil permit, new manuals that differentiate bond securities for different sized projects, and flow charts to outline different requirements for major and minor developments.
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