Submitted by the Town of Friday Harbor

The Town of Friday Harbor is pleased to announce that it has received two grant awards in the total amount of $1,200,000 from the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board. The first grant in the amount of $975,000 will be used to rebuild Web Street and A Street. The project would start at the intersection of Web and Argyle (in front of Big Store) and continue down Web to A Street, where it would then turn north on A to Nichols Street. The project will include the construction of curbs, gutters and sidewalks as well as a new driving surface.

The second grant, in the amount of $230,000, will build new sidewalks on the south side of Nichols Street from A Street to B Street. This grant will include new curbs and gutters on Nichols in addition to the sidewalk.

The town made application for the grants in October of this year and they were two of 378 different submittals from around the State of Washington. A total of $301 million was requested statewide and $117 million of those were funded.

The town will be responsible for a $134,000 match between the two projects. This match will be paid from monies collected by the Transportation Benefit District sales tax of 0.2 percent authorized by the voters in 2014. The TBD tax proceeds must be used exclusively for transportation capital investments within the town.

The town will begin the engineering work for these projects in 2017 with construction expected in 2018.

“I am so pleased the town will be able to continue its work towards improved walkability and traffic flow. We want to thank the Transportation Improvement Board for these opportunities,” said Mayor Carrie Lacher. “These upgrades and repairs are long overdue and will result in expansion and improvement of our downtown core”.