Cedar Rapids Today

The Marion City Council passed several street and sidewalk ordinances during its Feb. 23 meeting.

The board approved a plan for this year's Sidewalk Ramp Project, an annual project that aims to improve sidewalks and handicap-accessible ramps to make them compliant with the Americans With Disabilities act (ADA), as well as repair sidewalks that are dilapidated. The council awarded a contract for the project to Hunt Construction Co. in the amount of $143,098. The work will begin between June 5 and July 11 and will be completed less than two months after the start date. The project was added to the HMA street-resurfacing plan contracted to Pelling Company Inc. for $1,014,566. The first locations earmarked for improvement are Fifth Avenue, 12th Street and 13th Street, with others to follow once those are assessed.

"The budget for this is $1,000,000, so a lot of this as we do street by street, after we blow off that existing, will determine what that street actually looks like," City engineer Mike Barkalow said in the meeting "Our X-ray vision still isn't fully functional, so we have to see what it looks like when we peel that layer off. And so we'll adjust as we need to. If we have a street that's really bad and we end up doing a lot of point repairs or patches, we'll take some streets off. If we're doing good, we'll keep going and do more, but we'll stay within our million dollars."

In other business, the City approved a residential street parking policy that will limit some of the streets to parking on one side only based on street width and traffic. Notice of the changes will be posted, and all new and improved streets will be compliant with parking regulations for both sides of the street. The City also approved a speed limit change on Fernow Road between Fields Drive and Highway 13. The previous speed limit of 55 mph will be reduced to 35 mph in response to the recent annexation of the area into the city and the growing residential developments.

Additionally, the City purchased a small piece of land from Eastern Iowa Coffee in order to complete intersection renovations at Twixt Town Road and Marion Boulevard, a recent City of Marion document said. The land purchase cost was $2,254.24. The project will go out for bid in March, with council approving a contract at its March 23 meeting.