The City of Castlegar will be holding an information session regarding the Columbia Avenue Complete Street Redevelopment Project Phase 1 on Tuesday, June 27 from 6 to 8 p.m.
The event will be held at the Community Forum, #101, 445-13th Avenue.
The project will span Columbia Avenue from 11th Street to 18th Street. The city has received grant funding for $3,214,842 of the $4,822,000 project.
Based on previous public feedback, changes have been made to the original project concepts and the new design will be presented at the information session. Some of those concerns included the bike lane on only one side of the street and snow storage.
“This meeting is to present the design to those interested to show how we addressed their concerns from the previous meeting,” explained Castlegar CAO John Malcolm.
The project also underwent an ICBC safety audit which recommended that one-way cycle lanes on each side of the street was a better option.
The new design has bike lanes on both sides of the street.
Another suggested change was to bury the utility lines. This would add $3.2 million to the project, so most of city council was not in favour of making the change. At the last city council meeting, the subject was brought up again so council decided to make sure the idea was discussed during the information session to see if the public has an appetite to add the extra cost to the project.
Unless significant issues arrive at the information session, this is the final public consultation before the project moves forward with the city preparing detailed tender documents. Construction is expected to begin in 2018.