Proposed improvements to Kelly Road in Colwood have gotten a funding boost.
A road upgrade project that includes bike lanes and sidewalks, aiming to make the road safer and more pedestrian friendly, will be helped by a $75,000 federal government grant.
The funding is administered through the Capital Regional District’s Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan. The grant lowers the $710,000 Colwood budgeted for the project out of its own gas tax funds in the 2014 budget.
“We think it is wonderful if we spend a little less of (our own) gas tax. It frees that money up for other projects,” said Coun. Judith Cullington.
The road is somewhere between an important thoroughfare and a neighbourhood road, she said. The project could see a number of potential changes between Sooke Road and Veteran’s Memorial Parkway, including boulevards, medians and landscaping.
The municipality will host a public meeting “sometime in the summer” before finalizing the plans, Cullington said. The project likely wouldn’t get underway until 2015.
“It is more around recognizing need. When we took a look at the master plan (we asked) ‘where are the routes we could improve?’ And Kelly Road, for quite some time, has been high on our priority list,” Cullington said. “In the Official Community Plan, one of the things we said we wanted is to be more pedestrian friendly, bike friendly, more transit friendly. So this is an example of how we are trying to move toward that.”
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