A new pedestrian bridge across I-5 in Lynnwood. A new bypass around Granite Falls. Making roads safer near schools in Stanwood.
These are a few of the projects in line for money from the federal economic stimulus package.
Earlier this week, the state released a plan to spend $16.1 million in these federal dollars for state and federal highways in the county.
On Friday, a committee for a regional planning group named 13 more projects in Snohomish County to receive $14.9 million from a second pot of the economic stimulus.
Altogether, Washington is on track to pocket $671 million as its share of transportation money in the federal stimulus package.
Of this, $341 million would be divvied out by the state for highways; $151 million is going to highways controlled by regional agencies, and $179 million will go to transit, distributed based on ridership.
The list on Friday was released by the Puget Sound Regional Council. King County would get $40.4 million, Pierce County $18.65 million and Kitsap County $3.95 million for local road projects.
The list of local projects won’t be made final until March 12, when the Puget Sound Regional Council executive board is scheduled to vote on the package.
“The final list will be impacted ultimately by what happens in Olympia,” said Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson, vice president of the regional council and a member of the 32-member executive board.
If any of these road projects receive state money, it could move some of the projects off the regional council’s list, making room for others, officials said.
Local governments submitted a huge list of requests for stimulus money. Which of these ultimately gets funded is being decided in a three-step process, said Steve Thomsen, public works director for Snohomish County. He also is a member of the Puget Sound Regional Council’s 34-member regional project evaluation committee, which narrowed down the list.
First, a group of about 30 local officials met several times to discuss the requests. This list went to the regional council’s committee, which will forward it to the executive board.
The most important consideration was the “shovel-ready” factor, Thomsen said — whether a project had been through the permitting and design process and is ready to go to bid within 90 days.
The group agreed from the beginning that the process had to be competitive and based on established guidelines, Thomsen said.
“The group works really well, and somebody will keep the person in line who’s trying to do an end run and put their favorite project on the list, keep them honest and ask them a couple of questions,” he said.
After shovel-ready, the next biggest factor was whether a project would contribute to economic development by being located in a job center, such as Everett or Lynnwood, or would improve access to one of these areas. Next came geographic distribution, ensuring that outlying areas received some benefit, Thomsen said.
Stephanson said he likes what he’s seen from the committee’s work.
“I think it was a good process and was well vetted,” he said. “It’s been a lot of hard work by staff in a quick time but they’ve done a great job. It really has been a very cooperative effort in our county.”
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