Brandywine Bike Trail, Coatesville to Modena

At the Coatesville City Council Meeting September 12, 2011

Mr. Rawlings attended a meeting in 08/16/11 with the Borough of South Coatesville and their consultant Kairos Design Group, LLC to put together a Transportation and Community Development Initiative (TCDI) feasibility study for a Brandywine Bike Lane Trail.

The bike trail is proposed to go from the Brandywine Riverwalk in Coatesville down First Avenue into the Borough of South Coatesville and Modena.

This worthwhile project will supplement the Velodrome Project and add to the improvement of Coatesville.

The application is to the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

Mr. Bachik from Kairos Design Group, LLC, “If we’re successful in getting the grant application we would help you find the $2,500 much of it through community donations so that you don’t have to spend it out of the general fund.”

The City of Coatesville’s match is $2,500, the Borough of South Coatesville is matching $7,500 and also committed in kind services in excess of $30,000. The total project is about $150,000.  At this time Modena’s match is unknown.

It’s my understanding that “community donations” are help from volunteers and the City of Coatesville’s Streets Department.

Mr. Bachik, “The goal here is to make a collaborative project between three municipalities, because everyone benefits...

The goal is to include the City in the process with limited or no financial exposure.

Goal number one is to submit the application.

Two is to be successful with that submission.

Three is getting the money to make it happen”

Coatesville City Councilperson Jarrell Brazzle asked again, “Back to this… where are we going to get this $2,500 from?"

Coatesville City Manager Gary Railings, "We can budget it for next year and I think the Council has to start looking at the budget in terms of trying to do some things with our money than just pay salaries.  We have to start using our… to do things like this to improve the community. 

I’ll be coming to you the next couple meetings with a quality of life program that gets into all sorts of things; from vacant houses, to roads, to street signs and things. And you've got to start to think about what to do about it, especially street signs.

We’re losing cases because the street signs are so faded that the judge is throwing them out. That's ridiculous!  So we've got to do something with these signs in town.

So we’ve got to start budgeting for that, trying to replace these sign to do something with different aspects of the community to make it better for people to live."

Councilperson Ed Simpson, “It’s just totally falling apart. I’m mean the money hasn’t been there but there comes to a point in time where we have to say, we got to do something with it.”

Mr. Rawlings, “The Velodrome Project is that close to being a go and this will be an additional attraction for people to come here and just ride this bike trail out into the country. In fact it’s going to start right by the Velodrome Riverwalk. So it’s going to be a nice addition."

Mr. Bachik, “And if I could just for the sake of comparison, if we’re successful that $2,500 actually represents to the City about $50,000 to $70,000 of physical improvements. So, the commitment of $2,500 has a great benefit of real hard improvements as far as the successful applications. I think there is great merit from it because it helps get some of those things done that I think Mr. Rawlings was pointing out."

Mr. Rawlings."We have to start addressing some of these things that might help us down that road."