Richmond’s Yellow Brick Road Projectappears to be heading for approval of $6.2 million grant. Out of 617 applications for the Active Transportation Program (ATP), Caltrans staff recommended 86 projects (or 13.9% of the total applications) for funding. Their recommendations included $6.2 million for Richmond's Iron Triangle Yellow Brick Road Project. 

The staff recommendations now go to the California Transportation Commission (CTC) in late October where they are formally approved. If approved, the city will get the funding to build the first leg of the Yellow Brick Road, including:

• Peres Elementary to Elm Playlot/Pogo Park (all of Pennsylvania to Harbour | 7th Street from Pennsylvania to Ripley | Elm Ave from 7th to 8th)
• 8th Street from Triangle Court, past Elm Playlot to the Richmond Greenway + Harbour-8 Park
• All the crossings on the Greenway (2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, Harbour and 20th Street)

This is huge news for the Iron Triangle neighborhood, and for Richmond. 

Toody Maher of Pogo Park, a prime initiator of the grant application, listed the following people to thank for helping to assemble the application:

• Kirsten Negus at Pogo Park, who worked night and day to write the bulk of the narrative and to put all the pieces together (Note: Kirsten if now 4 for 4 in grants she wrote for Pogo Park on behalf of the city. If the CTC approves the $6.2 million ATP grant in October, she will be responsible for bringing roughly $14 million in capital funds into the Iron Triangle neighborhood)

• Carrie Neilson at Fehr + Peers, who worked hours and hours to provide the detailed budget and the forecast of the bike and walking counts - and answered all our endless phone calls day after day

• Chad Smalley for patiently overseeing the collective efforts of the entire team to work together and submit three ATP grants on behalf of the city

• Lina Velasco who has been a steady champion and trusted shepherd of the Yellow Brick Road project from the very beginning

• Patrick Phelan who provided multiple iterations of very good and detailed maps at a moment's notice time and time again - and provided insightful comments about bike and walking routes that no one else had thought about

• Gabino Arredondo who went out of his way (as usual) to secure signatures of the letters of support that were critical to this grant (and to Shasa Curl for getting Tony Thurmond to sign a letter in Sacramento!)

• Coire Reilly and his team from CC Health Department for writing the narrative and providing the data we needed to answer the question in the grant about health impacts

• Adrian Maher at Pogo Park for spending days and days meticulously crafting individual letters of support to provide to each partner - and following up to ensure they got them signed

• The entire Pogo Park local resident team for getting up at dawn for two weeks straight to conduct neighborhood surveys and collect data on bike and walking counts at multiple locations all over the Iron Triangle neighborhood - data that was critical to this grant.

• Bruce Beyaert at TRAC for his never-ending positive help and insights about the minutest of details of the grant

• Josh Meyer of Local Government Commission who wrote the successful grant application to Caltrans to fund the planning portion of the Yellow Brick Road project.

• Dan Burden for all the insights and wisdom he brought to the project

• Diane Aranda at The California Endowment for providing a rapid response $10,000 grant that helped Pogo Park to fund the cost of the surveys and data collection - pieces that were critical to the success of the grant application.

• Tom Butt for providing a grant to help fund the surveys and data collections - and being continuous champion of Yellow Brick Road project

• Ron and Maren, founders and owners of Richmond's Scientific Art Studio for providing the magnificent artwork that was used on the cover of the grant

• Everyone helped in their own way - and the collective efforts made Richmond's grant stand out enough to be recommended by the State for funding. (Interestingly, if funded at $6.2 million, Richmond would receive the third largest award in the State!)

Fingers crossed for positive news from the CTC in October – and for the possibility that the MTC will fund the other two Active Transportation Program projects in Richmond.