Proposal would expand city's transportation planning

Above: Rendering of one segment of a proposed greenway in north Minneapolis.

A major change to the way the city's public works department plans transportation projects could give residents more say in what ultimately gets built in their neighborhoods.

City engineer Steve Kotke told the city's budget committee Thursday that he is reorganizing department to create a new division focused largely on planning transportation projects – a task that is now covered under two divisions. The new division will get a $300,000 boost in the mayor's budget, on top of $3 million in redirected funds.

Under the current system, the scope and budget of a road resurfacing or new bikeway is largely determined by the time city staff begin the public engagement process.

"We put together a concept, submit it for approval and once it gets approved then we have funding and then we do the community engagement," Kotke said. "So what this really is is trying to get some additional funding, some up-front money to get the concepts developed before we actually even receive the capital dollars."

Another benefit of the change is that projects will be "shovel-ready" if new funding does become available, Kotke said.

He highlighted the major bus improvements on Marquette and 2^nd Avenue downtown in 2009, which benefited from two years of advanced planning before the city successfully sought $35 million in federal funds. That early work is becoming even more important for projects using federal dollars, since the federal government is eliminating extensions it had previously granted for using grant money.

"It can't be underscored, the significance of this restructuring and what it can mean for not only this department but the city itself," Reich said.

Organics recycling will be another major initiative of the public works department in 2015. It will cost $5.3 million to buy 50,000 carts and 11 packer trucks, and $4.4 million into the future for 22 new employees and maintenance work.

The program will only apply to the approximately 100,000 homes served by the city's trash haulers, each of whom will pay upwards of $40 a year in their trash bills whether they opt-in or not. Kotke said they will roll it out to 25 percent of homes in September 2015, with the other 75 percent of homes receiving them in spring 2016.