WARDEN – The Warden City Council approved the West First Street pedestrian path at the regular council meeting June 25. The path will begin on the eastern side of West First Street from South County Road to Jackson Avenue.  

“We've been working on this project for a long time,” City Administrator Kriss Shuler said. “We've received funding through Grant County or the QUADCO funding sources to do the walking path from county road to the first federal railroad tracks at Jackson Road.”  

Shuler explained that getting approval for the path has been a process. Originally, the city was going to have a walking path, which consisted of dirt and a thin layer of asphalt. The Department of Transportation did not approve this request because they were concerned it would just “wash away,” according to Shuler.  

Shuler then worked with DOT, pitching the city to move the sidewalk to the north side of the road. However, DOT said there were some concerns with not enough protection as well as drop-off sites. 

“They wanted us to go back to the drawing board,” she said. “What they offered was, how about if you put in a hard service sidewalk, an ADA-compliant sidewalk, instead of a walking path through there. So, with that, they approved that plan.” 

However, the complications didn’t end there. There was a cost increase of around $150,000 to build a concrete sidewalk instead of a walking path.  

The walking path would have cost around $367,000, with most of it funded by QUADCO. The city's match would have been around $57,000, but the match was covered by State Transportation Improvement Board funding.  

For the whole project, the cost would now be $425,000, Shuler said.  

“We went back to QUADCO and said, ‘We really want to do this project, but now it's going to cost $150,000 more. Do you have any more money for us?’ They said, ‘We can do that.’ So, they did up their funding sum, which still leaves $20,250 now that will be the city match,” she said. “Well, for a $575,000 project, which seems outlandish to a sidewalk, but that's what it costs. Only $20,000 is going to be the city share.” 

Now, since the council has approved the project, the city will be moving forward with building the sidewalk.  

“That process will start, and hopefully we're going to get this done by fall. They're asking us to get that spent this year,” Shuler said.