Active Transportation Planning Grants open the door to far larger opportunities

Rpy L Hales/Cores Currents - The Active Transportation Planning grants that Quadra Island is about to receive, and both Cortes Island and Area D are applying for, opens the door to far larger opportunities.  As Meredith Starkey, Manager of Planning for the Strathcona Regional District (SRD), explained “Active transportation means anything human powered: walking, cycling, and rolling in the sense of skateboarding or some other type of device that you might use to roll."  "This is the BC Active Transportation Infrastructure Grant Program that's administered through the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. They have  a sub grant  that is specifically for active transportation network planning."  "What we have is the network planning grant."  “We just were directed by the Board to apply for Areas B (Cortes) and D. It's this same grant that we now have for Area C. The province provides  a maximum of $50,000. It's 50 percent grant funded and 50 percent funded by the Gas Tax for us and so in total, it's $100,000 to develop the plan." "That enables us to do all the foundational background research, the data gathering part, but then also to flesh that out into a full plan. On top of that,  we're able to pull out one high level priority from that plan and do all  the engineering work, the survey, the cost estimates and  concept design work that would need to happen so that we can actually make it shovel ready.  All the groundwork that we need in order to apply for the infrastructure grant,  which is the same fund but a different funding stream within it."  Cortes Currents: So this grant is the door opener and in the next grant you actually get to do some of the stuff.    Meredith Starkey: "That is correct."  Cortes Currents: Is there a financial cap for the second stage? Meredith Starkey: "The infrastructure portion of the grant is much, much bigger.  I don't actually know the cap on it now, but it's quite substantial."