A federally funded project to refurbish Dalton Gardens’ main residential street has hit the skids.

Council members voted unanimously Thursday to turn away a $4.5 million federal grant that would have paid for bicycle lanes, sidewalks and curbs on both sides of Fourth Street.

Residents said the work would have increased traffic and rubbed out the rural flavor of their quiet neighborhood.

“I don’t like giving up $4 million,” Dalton resident Dick Flugel said. “But mostly I don’t like giving up my neighborhood.”

Flugel, who lives on Fourth Street, said the project that was given the green light by the last city administration without the approval of residents was unpopular from the moment constituents heard about it.

The Fourth Street work, which would have added roundabouts at the edge of Dalton Gardens at the intersections of Dalton and Prairie avenues, was at the crux of a recall election last spring that ousted the town’s former mayor and two council members.

It was so unpopular, Flugel said, that opponents of the measure made certain their voices were heard at a recent open house and at last week’s meeting at City Hall, which required fire marshals to leave the doors open to legally increase the number of people inside from 70 to 100.

“Eighty-one percent of the people who showed up were against it,” Flugel said. “That number represents those of us who were interested in it.”

Flugel said the projected work would have increased traffic through the residential district because motorists prefer a wider street with roundabouts to stopping at traffic lights on Government Way, which parallels Fourth Street.

Council members heard public input at last week’s hearing before casting their votes to sink the project, something interim Mayor Jeff Fletcher viewed as a questionable decision.

“I think it was a bad decision,” Fletcher said. “At the same time I’m proud of the council for listening to the people.”

The approximately 220 people who showed up at a city sponsored open house last month represented just 11 percent of the voting public, Fletcher said.

Those who attended learned how the project would widen the city’s main north to south street, improve safety by adding bicycle and walking lanes while still keeping the speed limit at 25 mph and adding roundabouts at the northern and southern end of the 1 ½ mile improvement project.

Matt Gillis of Welch Comer Engineers, which oversaw the project for the city and works on similar projects alongside communities throughout North Idaho, said turning away a large chunk of change is unusual on the Panhandle’s often cash-strapped municipal environment.

“I haven’t encountered it before where a community turns back federal money,” Gillis said.

Because Dalton Gardens ponied up a 7 percent match of an initial $100,000 expenditure to move ahead on the road work, it will lose the $7,000 it had invested, he said.

Unwinding the project under a semi-tight timeline will prevent the city from being in arrears for the full $100,000.

If the city wants to fix Fourth Street without adding curbs, sidewalks and bike lanes, it will likely have to pay for the work itself.

Flugel said he was fine with that.

“From a business standpoint, it may seem like a bad decision,” Flugel said. “But we weren’t there from a business standpoint, we were there to save our neighborhoods.”