The Sallisaw Board of Commissioners has approved a resolution allowing the city to apply to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation to use Transport Alternatives Program (TAP) funds for construction and installation of crosswalk signals and traffic control systems at Cherokee Avenue and Elm Street.

The project entails what George Bormann, director of grants and economic development for the city, says is “the complete kit and caboodle — push-button poles, traffic lights, everything.”

Detailed in the application that is being submitted today to ODOT is four-way, push-button access across Elm and Cherokee, connecting the downtown district to the public library and farmers market area, providing “a safe pedestrian crosswalk, especially with the swimming complex and the skateboard park coming, too. It will just be another avenue that we‚ll have safe crossing across the highway,” Bormann told the commissioners at Thursday‚s special meeting.

City Manager Keith Skelton confirmed with Bormann that, in addition to the controlled crosswalks, the project “will also include traffic light control systems, and also new poles.”

The estimated cost of the project is $307,992.50, with the required city matching amount to be 20% of the cost — $61,598.50. But the application Bormann is submitting includes an incentive to further encourage ODOT to fund the project: A 22% matching amount instead of the 20% threshold amount.

“For the application, we get more points when we provide just a little bit more than 20%,” Bormann explained, which gives the city a better chance of being selected for funding. The city‚s portion of the project would be $67,758.35, “with ODOT picking up the 78% that‚s left over.”

Bormann told the commissioners that the application is the first portion of the process. “If our project is selected, we‚ll make a second round, [ODOT] will come down and do a visit and make sure we‚ve got everything in order. This resolution is just part of that process.”