By Hector Gonzalez
Staff Writer

January 14, 2015--Santa Monica City Council members Tuesday approved applications for more than $17 million in Metropolitan Transportation Authority grants to complete five local transit projects, including $1.1 million for a new bike path connection to the Santa Monica Pier.

Every other year, the MTA requests applications for grants from cities for local transit projects. This year, the transit agency’s deadline for applying is Friday, according to a staff report.

Although the grants won’t be available until fiscal year 2020-21, Santa Monica could receive funding for some or all of its grant requests sooner, “if any de-obligated funding becomes available,” the report noted.

To qualify, the city must put up matching funds, in this case about $4.4 million in total. Matching funds would come from “various funding sources” and would have to be approved by the City Council as part of future budget planning, the report said.

Among the projects on the city’s wish list is the bike path connector to the pier that will allow bicyclists to travel from the beach to Colorado and Ocean avenues. The project also would improve “regional bicycle access to the Downtown Expo Station,” according to the staff report.

Santa Monica is applying for $880,000 in MTA grants for the project. Combined with $220,000 in city matching grants, the bike path’s total cost is $1.1 million, the report said.

In addition, the city will apply for $3.2 million to rebuild the intersection at Stewart Street, Nebraska Avenue and Olympic Boulevard.

The crosswalk there would be widened, new pedestrian signals would be added, and protected bike lanes would be built on Stewart, from Olympic to Colorado Avenue “to connect the regional bike path to the Expo Station,” the staff report said.

That project is estimated to cost about $4 million, with the MTA contributing about $3.2 million and the city kicking in another $804,000, the report said.

Officials also want $1.7 million in MTA funds to install new pedestrian lighting on the west side of 17th Street, from Wilshire to Pico boulevards, as well as to replace curbs there.

An additional $10.8 million in grant funds would be used to replace 25 city buses that will “exceed their useful life in 2016,” the report said. The city will contribute around $2.8 million to the $13.6 million project.

Also included in the application is $360,000 to hire “trained travel advisors” to “provide in-person travel planning support at Expo staions,” the report said. The city would match that amount with $90,000.

“Travel advisors would be trained on the myriad of new transportation options available in Santa monica,” the staff report said, “including the growing variety of first- and last-mile connections.”