On May 28th, City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will discuss recommending the city apply for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) that will build a $1.7 Million shared-use path and new sidewalks for Crawford Street between East Water Street and Herrlinger Park in 2026 and make park improvements at Herrlinger in 2025.
What Residents See As Neighborhood Needs
Since the beginning of the year, City staff has held a series of meetings with residents of Crawford Street gauging what the needs of the neighborhood are. This publication talked about the needs of the neighborhood in a previous edition.
Residents believed that storm drainage, and better parks and recreational facilities (including playground equipment), were needs for the neighborhood. Some of the comments received included:
Would like to see a nice swing set, maybe newer slides and a couple more public tables.
New lighting installed for safety around the park and down Race Drive (from Mulberry Street to Union Street).
Herrlinger Park needs new playground equipment.
Would like to have drainage under the railroad underpass a top priority when we get significant rains (and that the pump is always working).
Need to have some drainage put in on Herrlinger Way at the parking area as the park flood there.
Using that input, the City Staff decided to put forward a $1.7 million project that will install new five foot sidewalks on the east side of Crawford Street and a ten foot multi-use path on the west side of Crawford Street.
Being an older part of town, many of the homes on South Crawford Street don’t exactly have very large front yards, so the addition of a 10’ path on the west side of the street has the real opportunity to take away what little front yards exist on the street, as shown by the cross-section diagram below that was provided in the committee packet.
Past Planning Efforts Call for more Bicycle Infrastructure
The City’s Staff report claims that this extension is a vital piece of bicycle infrastructure that is called for by the Downtown Riverfront Strategic Development Study.
It should be noted that the plan, completed by the MKSK planning firm, didn’t necessarily call for a new ten-foot shared use path to be installed just inches from the front doors of houses on Crawford Street. Rather, the plan called for a more cost-effective approach; the addition of pavement markings on streets where enhanced bike infrastructure was called for, which the plan pointed out for other downtown streets such as Plum Street and Simpson Street as well.
The Community Development Block Grant that the city is requesting, will not even cover half the cost of the entire $1.7 Million project, other city funds will need to cover nearly $1 Million to finish the project.
Other funds that will be used to finance this project include $400,000 of the city’s general fund revenues, $250,000 from the city’s stormwater fund and $250,000 from funds from the CDBG Revolving Loan Fund, which as traditionally been used to help provide loans to support job creation for low to moderate income individuals. The City’s water funds will also be used for this project as well.
Improvements to Herrlinger Park
The proposed grant package does take into consideration some of the critical needs that were identified by residents of the neighborhood earlier this year by making park and recreational facility improvements. Herrlinger Park is scheduled to receive new park equipment, new pickleball courts and a new nine-hold disc golf course around the perimeter of the park. Safety upgrades such as new lighting and fencing is also planned.
One of the curious notes from the above report to the committee is that if the CDBG grants are not awarded, the Herrlinger Park Improvements will be delayed until grant funding is secured.
The City is already committing $60,000 in the park budget for the Herrlinger Park Improvements and committing $400,000 in general fund revenues for the new shared use path. If the grants are not received, the city could certainly still keep the $60,000 commitment and install playground equipment, cited as a critical need by the residents.
The final plan put forward by City Staff was presented to the public through a mandated public hearing that was held earlier this week. Two residents showed up to the meeting, and a recap of that public hearing can be found here:
The Community and Economic Development Committee, chaired by Jeff Schilling, also has two residents from the city’s east side serving on the committee, Lynne Snee and Samuel Pierce. It will be interesting to see the recommendation from this committee for this $1.7 Million infrastructure project that will have a huge physical impact on the city’s east side.
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I'm not sure the top diagram even reflects what the real design would have to be for a 10-ft path off the street. Several houses on Crawford are right on the sidewalk, so the only way to get a 10-ft path would be to take out the curb lawn. (Which, in my opinion, is a better way to add a bike path than putting it on the street.) I do think marked bike lanes in cities are a good thing, but dedicated bike paths are better when they can be achieved.