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Pathways seeks part of $6.26 million in federal funds administered though the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
The last time Pathways was submitted, in 2006, it ranked third out of eight local projects. This year, the La Crosse Area Planning Committee placed it behind five trail proposals.
The federal money, which funds 80 percent of an approved project, funds such projects as pedestrian and bicycle facilities, streetscaping and preserving historic transportation structures.
Pathways would spend $670,000 to beautify downtown West Salem while improving safety in the area of Mill, Leonard and Elm streets, and Memorial Drive.
Applications go before a state committee and then the secretary of transportation for recommendation to the governor. Before that, though, projects are ranked by a local metropolitan planning organization. Pathways and five other applications went before the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, one of three subcommittees of the LAPC.
Onalaska’s application for a Hwy. 16 multipurpose trail — a 9,000-foot connection between Valley View Mall and the intersection of Hwy. 16 and Landfill Road — ranked first.
Second was La Crosse’s Dairyland Power Extension Trail, which would be a 0.44-mile route connecting the Oak Street Connector Trail at Moore Street to bike lanes on Ranger Drive.
In third was La Crosse’s Goose Green Connector Trail, a one-third-mile multipurpose trail that links neighborhoods around Goose Green Park to the Three Rivers Trail.
Ranked fourth was an Onalaska project that would link the Great River State Trail across Main Street at Hwy. 35 to the La Crosse River State Trail.
In fifth was La Crosse’s Goose Island Connector Trail, which would create a trail between the southern part of the city and Goose Island County Park.
Approved applications should be announced in early- to mid-September.
Matthew Perenchio is assistant editor at the Coulee News.
