91ÊÓƵ

Portland City Council today approved a list of projects to pass on for regional government Metro‘s approval as part of the Regional Flexible Funds program.

Metro’s Regional Flexible Funds program allocates funds from two federal grant programs: the Surface Transportation Program and the Congestion Mitigation/Air Quality Program. It has $24 million to allocate among local cities and counties for projects in 2014 and 2015.

At today’s meeting, council approved Portland’s nomination of four projects, which would be partially funded by a total of $9 million from the flexible funds.

The request includes the following:

• $3.36 million for pedestrian and bicyclist improvements in the area south of Interstate 84, east of Interstate 205 and north of Foster Road
• $1.25 million for pedestrian and bike safety along three portions of Southeast Foster Road between 63^rd and 84^th avenues
• $2 million to develop a large-scale bike sharing program
• $2.36 million to improve the intersection of North Time Oil and Burgard roads for freight usage

Metro will collect nominations and form a list, which will go out for public comment in September. Metro will act on the final allocation at its Dec. 15 meeting.