Accessibility matters
This week several new accessible parking spaces, including striped areas for accessible van passengers to disembark appeared in the Village Square Shopping Center.
The lines are clear, crisp, and unmistakable, the signs are new and the areas are now super well-defined and will make access to these shops and services that much easier for all our visitors.
This matters a lot both logistically and for the message it sends about our community working to welcome people of all abilities. Logistically, the previous configuration was faded and it was hard to determine where accessible vehicles, vans and wheelchairs should and could park/exit.
Marion Baraw, Village Square spokesperson, emphasized the importance of the message it sends to visitors and also noted that it is an important infrastructure feature that is critical to helping her tenants succeed and attract visitors and customers. Fair point.
She said it took longer than anticipated to find a contractor to do the work and said it was worth it. Kudos!
Knock wood – its working
Waitsfield has recently received word that its proposed municipal wastewater project will -- as anticipated – qualify for significant amounts of state funding. This is on top of being nominated for $7.5 million in Congressional Direct Spending monies to go towards the $15 million wastewater project that will bring the town into this century in terms of public infrastructure.
It took a leap of faith for the community to get behind this project, taking planners and proponents at their word that moving the project along and checking of milestones in the progress would increase eligibility for state and federal funding.
Voters took that leap of faith by passing a $15 million bond vote in June and the pieces are now coming together -- as predicted.
It is both exciting (and wonderfully mundane) to learn that the funding pieces are falling into place with another $5.2 million on top of $1 million for final engineering and the potential of more.
Touch wood! The proponents were right, the work done to date DID improve the town’s eligibility for funding and that is an amazing self-fulfilling prophesy.
