Feb. 25, 2015. An online petition to support a grant application for a sidewalk from Main Street to Bass Lake has been started and the Town of Blowing Rock is asking citizens to sign a petition supporting the project.
Providing a way to walk safely from downtown Blowing Rock to Bass Lake has been a goal of the Blowing Rock Town Council for many years. Through the use of funds obtained from the Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP), it may become a reality very soon!
The Town of Blowing Rock is asking for support of the project and the return of federal tax dollars to the High Country by asking folks to sign the online petition which can be accessed through the following link, which will also be available through the top of the Town’s website at www.townofblowingrock.com.
You do not have to be a citizen of Blowing Rock to sign the petition, which can be accessed here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/689/413/700/sidewalk-from-main-street-to-bass-lake/
If the Town’s application is successful, the North Carolina FLAP program funds could provide as much as 80 percent of the total funding necessary to build a five-foot-wide sidewalk from Main Street in downtown Blowing Rock along the north side of Highway 221 to the entrance to Bass Lake, which is part of the National Park Service’s Moses Cone Memorial Park. The existing bike lane will remain, and curb and gutter will be installed at the edge of the existing pavement.
The project is estimated to cost approximately $1.2 million and the FLAP program may provide $960,000 of that total, bringing federal taxes paid directly back into the Blowing Rock community in a way that will provide a benefit for residents and visitors alike.
This project was listed as part of the successful $9 million transportation general obligation bond referendum approved by 74 percent of Blowing Rock voters on Nov. 4, 2014. Leveraging this federal funding will help stretch Town of Blowing Rock bond authority even further, allowing more transportation improvement projects to be completed over the next seven to ten years.
A Federal Highway Administration official commented regarding the online petition approach, “I must say that the use of a community generated, online petition to solicit indications of public support for this proposed project is a very interesting technique. We have not previously encountered this method of community outreach on any of the other FLAP applications that we have received, so we will be interested to see what the final response rate is.”
The Town of Blowing Rock would love to set the bar very high with this type of community support approach.
The application deadline of March 13, 2015 is approaching and the petition will be open and available through March 12, 2015.
Please show your support of this important project by logging on to the website shown above. The Town encourages everyone to share this link with their friends and family as well. You do not have to be a resident of Blowing Rock to sign the petition.
The more community support shown for this project and the application for federal funding, the greater the Town’s chances are to be approved for the grant. If anyone would like to submit their own separate, more traditional letter of support for the project, they may do so by emailing it to manager@townofblowingrock.com or mailing it to Town of Blowing Rock, c/o Sidewalk Project Grant P.O. Box 47 Blowing Rock, NC 28605.
All of those letters along with the list of petitioners will be included with the grant application.
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