The Columbus City Council approved the first reading of an ordinance to appropriate $80,000 from the city’s general fund to go towards three different projects.
The vote was 8-0. Councilman Chris Bartels, R-District 1, was absent. Ordinances must be passed on two readings to be approved.
The City of Columbus Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) is requesting the funds to go towards the city engineer’s office and planning department budgets.
City officials said $30,000 would be used for engineering safety audits at up to five of the city’s top crash intersections, $20,000 would go toward a consultant contract for a review of the city’s flood risk management plan and flood response and evacuation plan and another $30,000 would be used for the purchase of a combination of stationary and mobile bicycle and pedestrian counters to be used on the People Trails.
CAMPO handles transportation planning for the city and county and works to gain federal funds for transportation improvement projects.
City/county planning director Jeff Bergman emphasized the CAMPO budget is separate from the planning department budget. The CAMPO budget is primarily federally funded— 80 percent of its funds comes from the federal government, 18 percent come from the city and 2 percent comes from Bartholomew County.
“How we develop budgets for MPO (metropolitan planning organization) each year is we basically create an estimate of what the federal funding will be for that next year and we work backwards in an effort to capture as much of that available federal funding as we can,” Bergman told the council.
That estimate it typically close, Bergman said, “but it’s just an estimate of the amount of federal money that we’re going to be eligible for. And usually, if not every time, our estimates are a bit low.”
If the budget’s full amount isn’t spent in a given year, the federal money carries over, according to Bergman.
“So each year, we’re building this little bit of surplus of federal money that we’re eligible for, that we’re not capturing in our city budget,” Bergman said.
The unbudgeted federal allocation as of now sits at just over $127,000, Bergman told the council. The $80,000 appropriation is made up of $64,000 worth from the federal allocation, combined with $16,000 in matching city funds.
The money funds CAMPO staff within the planning department and their office supplies, but is also used to support other departments, as is the case here.
The engineering safety audits would identify changes that would be needed at the city’s most dangerous intersections. City Engineer Andrew Beckort said his office is wrapping up their crash analyis for 2023 and should know of which intersections will be looked at soon.
The city had used CAMPO funds in the past to help with flood analysis and because the most frequent flooding type that occurs in the city is road flooding, Bergman said.
“… We’re getting to the point where we need to update that flood plan, so the additional appropriation will help us bring a consultant on board and do some scoping around that,” Bergman said.
Senior Planner and city bike pedestrain coordinator Jessie Boshell said they intend to work with the parks department to use the counters to tabulate traffic on the People Trails, but also get before and after numbers on road improvement projects.
