The city of Galveston will spend $24 million to fund a downtown infrastructure improvement project targeting mobility, utility and connectivity upgrades. The Galveston City Council recently took the steps needed to begin environmental and cultural resource reviews required to actualize federal dollars supporting the project.
The project will help address aging infrastructure while enhancing the accessibility and long-term resilience of the city’s downtown center, prioritizing pedestrian mobility and safety. The design and construction phases are slated to begin after the environmental and cultural resource reviews are completed and approved by the City Council in 2027.
The site extends from 27th Street to 14th Street within the Central Business District. Plans include improving the streetscape by building bicycle lanes, improving public transit stops and sidewalks, installing lighting and performing landscaping services. The city will implement additional improvements to the streetscape to support downtown events.
Galveston will ensure that extensive protective measures are taken to provide shelter during harsh weather conditions, including building appropriate transit stop structures. Additional work will include improving the downtown area’s drainage infrastructure by building bioswales and other stormwater detention devices.
Plans to mitigate potential flood events include installing wake break devices to inhibit automobile-created wakes from penetrating building envelopes during floods and providing shelter for pedestrians.
The project vision also calls for repairs to the trolley track switch, bringing trolley infrastructure that has been damaged for 18 years back into service. Restored rail infrastructure could bring limited rail service back to downtown corridors, connecting residents with major destinations.
Photo by Ed Uthman, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, from Wikimedia Commons
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