Karl McCollester (00:02.41)
Welcome to Mighty Municipalities, the podcast about small municipalities and how they can punch above their weight. I'm your host, Karl McCollister, and along with my co-host, Mark Partin, and our guests, we take you through the highs and lows of working in a small town, whether it's the hardship and frustration that is holding you back or the progress and wins that are propelling you forward. We're here to share the lessons learned and give you strategies to help improve your community. Mark, how are you doing today?

Mark Partin (00:27.343)
doing great and it is a beautiful day in South Carolina. The sun is out, spring-like temperatures, so we have a lot to be thankful for.

Karl McCollester (00:36.654)
Absolutely, I guess appreciated the summer detour we had earlier in this week, but I'm very much enjoying the spring temperatures as a result, so I guess it was worth it. Yes, absolutely. So we got a couple of good things to talk about today around...

Mark Partin (00:42.538)
is.

Mark Partin (00:46.641)
Absolutely, the hot weather will be here soon enough,

Karl McCollester (00:54.614)
transportation and specifically around streets and street usage for small towns and hopefully give our listeners a few ideas for things to think about as they're doing or as they're thinking about how their streets are used within their small municipality if they've ever thought about that as well as then of course we have a few grants to share. starting with the town of Red Bank, Tennessee.

Yeah, Red Bank, Tennessee. Population 11,900. They are, they have received a federal grant from, as part of the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program to the tune of, well, the total award is 4.16 million. And then I think the city or the city is putting in 1.1 million as a matching funds for that.

They were just awarded that or just announced the award at the beginning of the year. And that is towards both doing instead of.

potentially doing permanent infrastructure. What's interesting about this one is they are using it for basically temporary tryouts of various pieces of infrastructure within the municipality, specifically around bike lanes and some roundabouts to both demonstrate tryout within the municipality to see how they work. And so I really like the idea of as part of the grant, first of all, well, as part of the grant proposing that this not necessarily be a permanent

saying this is something that we are trying to see if it's going to be successful for our community. I love the idea of acknowledging that we can and should take chances as a municipality and that these are things that may not be permanent. We will see whether they're a good fit for us. These are the things we've learned from other places. And I love even more that the federal government actually agreed to it. It was an asset. was an infrastructure project.

Mark Partin (02:56.223)
Yes, yes.

Karl McCollester (03:00.421)
it was an acknowledgement that you can have something that's temporary. Mark, what are your thoughts?

Mark Partin (03:06.123)
Well, first of all, I'd like to say kudos to the council for having the courage to say let's invest You a large sum of money for like you just said that is a trial That that took some courage and so I want to say kudos to that council from Red Bank for taking that chance And trying something different but Red Bank. I think this is a going to be an interesting project to work on and

It provides a different view of transportation that we're not normally thinking of. And as I was telling you offline, some of my thoughts around this in general are traditionally we think of transportation as, know, cars, trucks, vans, et cetera, and how do we get around town? And previously the idea was bigger roads are better roads and bigger roads are safer roads and so forth.

Karl McCollester (04:00.942)
you

Mark Partin (04:03.253)
where transportation, the conversations around transportation have really progressed to being how do we include all forms of transportation, including walking and biking, as well as cars, trucks, et cetera. So I like that they are approaching this from that point of view with the Safe Streets for All initiative to encompass everything and everyone.

because not everyone either can afford a vehicle or they may prefer walking or biking. And it really does bring all that together without the detriment of any one of those. So I think it really is an interesting approach that they're taking and I'm excited to see what happens there.

Karl McCollester (04:34.638)
Mm.

Yes.

Karl McCollester (04:52.372)
Yeah, I agree. I try to bike down here to my primary office when I'm not traveling and when it's not South Carolina summer. Those are the two good times to do that. So, yes, it's great to have that because even here in Columbia, I've learned to pick my way through the correct streets that give me the best feeling of safety.

Mark Partin (05:02.185)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (05:19.616)
So yeah, are improvements that can be made in any size municipality.

Mark Partin (05:19.85)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (05:25.23)
What I thought, the other part I thought was interesting about this is that they were tying this to their Vision Zero program, which definitely had a peak of popularity or had its moment, I think, within the US here. I think more in their 2010 range, and it's kind of, now it's not that it's not liked, it's just that it's not the...

Mark Partin (05:44.853)
Right.

Karl McCollester (05:50.647)
the big initiative that people are joining because everybody's already joined it if they're going to join it kind of thing. And so for those small municipalities who aren't aware of Vision Zero is the idea that we want to have within our municipality the goal of or within our county or whatever the regional government is adopting this. We want to try to eliminate all traffic deaths.

Mark Partin (05:55.178)
Right.

Karl McCollester (06:14.242)
the idea that, you what is really acceptable in the means of traffic deaths, right? If you're saying there's some acceptable level, then who are you choosing kind of thing. So the idea of Vision Zero is what are the things we can look at? Where can we start with to really reduce the number of areas where we have fatalities and focus on them? And in reading that, that brought me back to the Strong Towns group

Mark Partin (06:19.85)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (06:44.256)
their crash analysis studio and what they have is it's a I don't it's something I think a city can elect to pay something for but it's they have all the kit on the site but it's the idea of taking look at crashes and looking at the patterns as much you know from a

not just how the driver, whether the driver was at fault purely or the pedestrian or bicyclist was at fault for not obeying some law, but also how is the street design potentially encouraging the...

the driver to go faster because yes, it's a 30 mile an hour zone, but the width of the streets because their US routes are wide enough to make it really comfortable to drive 50 and not think about in that section. So instead of just looking at, hey, which of the actors within the crash itself was at fault, taking a look at the patterns of the crashes in an area or the patterns of crashes at an intersection.

Mark Partin (07:39.679)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (07:53.627)
and saying what about this space and how we've made this space contributes to the crashes that are happening here. And I think that's an interesting, know, and again all that will include the link in the notes. You know, they have a lot of the materials up online that you can pull and then you really as a...

as a municipality, you know, voluntarily look at, know, hey, we've had, you know, if we're talking about small municipality, maybe three crashes in the last year or, you know, 10 in the last eight or something. You know, what, what a spot that stands out for you and really take a look at, hey, what are the things we can do, whether that's some traffic calming measures like bump outs for sidewalks or of course some of the things that are, you know, not the new hotness, but certainly, you know, much more popular to talk about these days as a way to make it clear.

Mark Partin (08:39.562)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (08:43.312)
that both visually that it's safe for the pedestrian to get close, have to cross less of the street, but also more visual, it gives more visual indicators to the driver that, this is a spot to slow down because we have these things that bump out. So you don't have as much margin for air to be driving at the same speeds.

Mark Partin (08:58.111)
Thank

Mark Partin (09:02.601)
Yes. And, you know, when I first heard of the concept of traffic calming or road diets, I wasn't really consciously thinking about the psychological effect of either wider roads or narrower roads and how that affects your speed. But it really does because in the areas of Sumter where we do have, you know, four lane streets, quite often the speeds are very high. And I don't think people

largely are intending to go that fast. It's just, you don't feel the sensation of the speed the same way you do on smaller or even residential streets. But we have recently here in one particular residential neighborhood implemented a lot of stop signs, four way stops. And while it's always been a residential neighborhood, it was also

Karl McCollester (09:51.126)
Mm. Yes.

Mark Partin (09:58.24)
sort of informally a cut through from one major commercial area to another so that speeds were higher than they should have been as well as the volume of traffic. So one of the things that has been done over the last year and one as even recently as a month ago was implementing more four way stops in the residential area. And it has brought down traffic, but it's also increased frustration.

Karl McCollester (10:24.846)
Right. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Mark Partin (10:25.577)
which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but it does take people a while to get used to that different flow of traffic.

Karl McCollester (10:34.542)
Right. Yeah. Especially if you're a resident in one end and you know now it's adding three minutes to your trip to the grocery store, things like that. But I will tell you, mean, you're going back to my bicycle story and picking through the streets. mean, one of the things I've done is I've very carefully tried to find a route that hits four way stop signs at every intersection or light. Right. So that I know I have a very clear pass through and I'm not trying to judge the speed of the

Mark Partin (10:42.432)
Right.

Mark Partin (10:55.786)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (11:04.496)
the car coming the other way to figure out whether I can get through safely or not. So it greatly contributes to my speed, ironically, as a bicyclist, by having the four-way stop there.

Mark Partin (11:06.443)
Yes.

Mark Partin (11:16.191)
Right, yes. I would like to say in general about the Safe Streets for All program. There are a lot of opportunities out there that if your municipality or county hasn't been involved in to take a look at when these funding rounds come up because not only does it allow you to do physical work or in this case do some trials, but it also will pay for consulting studies to be done.

So maybe if you know, hey, we've got a problem, but we're not really sure how we should approach it. There are funds available to help you get people in to look at it and offer fresh eyes and come up with opportunities. And we've taken advantage of some of that with some bike ped studies and some trail studies and some alternative transportation studies. So there are a lot of opportunities that maybe are more helpful than you would.

think otherwise. So it's worth taking a look at.

Karl McCollester (12:15.404)
Right. Absolutely. What else we got? Mark?

Mark Partin (12:20.587)
Well, the next topic we want to talk about is town of Carborough, North Carolina. And Carborough is in the central area of the state near Raleigh Durham, North Carolina area. And it has a population of about 21, 22,000. So a very nice size community and a larger metropolitan area. But they are looking at closing down a street in their downtown area to make it more pedestrian bike friendly.

while it's also in a shopping area. So think of closing the street down, making it more of a bazaar area, if you will, or a market area. And so they're going to do a trial in April of this year where they're going to close it down every weekend, not just on a Saturday or not just for a morning, but Friday evening through Monday morning to close it down as a trial run. And I think that's an interesting approach.

to take because it's not just for a market or for a festival. But let's see how this affects the flow as well as the business in the area for the month of April for that weekend. they have, least from the research we can see, they've done their homework, they've had some community meetings and some concerns brought up that they've tried to address with other local shopping centers.

Karl McCollester (13:21.357)
Yeah

Karl McCollester (13:27.382)
Yes.

Mark Partin (13:47.496)
I'm concerned about if they're not able to drive and park on this particular street, they're going to fill up our parking area, which might keep people from shopping in our facility. But I still think this is a good attempt to try something different, again, just like Red Bank, without committing fully into doing the work. Let's make a trial run of this and see what happens.

Karl McCollester (13:51.246)
Hmm.

Karl McCollester (13:58.575)
Right.

Karl McCollester (14:07.032)
You

Karl McCollester (14:12.684)
Right. Yes, absolutely. And I think what's interesting is one, is even more temporary.

In that they're just blocking off this one block street. It's not even a pseudo construction project. It's more just putting up some barriers for that weekend. I think maybe putting in some benches on the street, things like that to kind of encourage pedestrian use. But the total cost and from what I can tell this is probably mostly labor with maybe some additional, you know, they're getting some barrels or other barriers for the ends of the street is for the month is 70,000, right? Which doesn't sound like nothing.

if you're a small town, but is a relatively small cost. I think the way I...

was trying to read through the tea leaves of the articles was inclusive of the labor costs. So, you know, it wasn't just the materials. It was the time for the police or public services to go up and put everything up, including, you know, because this street has turn signals going towards it, they're having to get up and cover the turn signals during the weekend and then take them back down Monday morning and do all that. So there's...

Mark Partin (15:17.726)
That's right.

Karl McCollester (15:23.546)
It's not a simple, you know, just block off and everything's going to be, you know, as far as labor, it's not just blocking off the street itself, it's blocking off the street, putting up decorations, but then also changing the traffic patterns by adjusting the lighting, you know, the traffic signaling as things are going along.

Mark Partin (15:41.676)
Yeah, it seems like they're transforming it as much as possible each weekend as if it was a permanent change. So they're really setting up the scenario to be very thorough, very thorough. Yeah. I would like to say, you know, there are some cautions to go along with an attempt like this, which is good because it's a trial.

Karl McCollester (15:51.725)
Mm-hmm.

Karl McCollester (15:57.293)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Partin (16:10.771)
because here in Sumter, the downtown Main Street area attempted this back in the 70s. Now there was a response to a new shopping mall, an indoor shopping mall being constructed here in town and downtown businesses were relocating to that mall. Now, for those of you that may be on the younger side, in the 70s, the constructions of mall shopping centers was a new thing.

Karl McCollester (16:38.264)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (16:40.805)
leaving downtown areas, going at the time to an usually outer part of town. That was a new concept. So that was a new trend. And the downtown areas were doing anything and everything they could to try to stop that exodus, not just in Sumter, but everywhere. now we're seeing almost a reversal of that, where shopping malls are almost non-existent. Very, very few really successful shopping malls left.

Karl McCollester (17:02.083)
Mm-mm.

Karl McCollester (17:07.15)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (17:09.587)
So we're seeing a move back to pedestrian friendly shopping, outdoor areas, not just for the convenience, but also for the, you know, getting the fresh air, getting the sunlight, getting exercise, not walking or not driving as much, walking. So, you know, the trend seems to have reversed now several decades later, but there is, like I said, you do need to be cautious and walk into this very intentionally and slowly.

Karl McCollester (17:20.546)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (17:35.246)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (17:39.583)
which I like what Carrboro is doing by doing this one month trial.

Karl McCollester (17:43.447)
Absolutely. they this is with the intent of potentially closing this long term. This is not just a pure, you know, let's let's try closing different places or something like this. They've identified the street potentially long term as one that they that they close and make into this pedestrian friendly area. Yes, absolutely. You're right, Mark. This is something that was tried in some places. I remember seeing photos of Sumter during the 70s when they tried this that was certainly

Mark Partin (18:10.122)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (18:13.45)
not successful then because of the feelings of, know, legitimate or otherwise of safety and everything else where the flight to malls was pretty common versus, you know, in the downtown cores were hollowed out. Whereas now, again, as you said, we have this reversal of all of that where the realization of the, you know, quality of architecture that's still around the...

Mark Partin (18:24.522)
Right.

Karl McCollester (18:38.114)
the ability to walk around and enjoy not just being in that space, but also having green space intermingled and things like that. you already have, this thing that was purpose built in the 1890s to 1940s, that is much harder for a shopping, commercial developer to recreate out in a suburban place. And they've tried now, they've had these places where they have the green spaces and everything else as a way to try to do that. And they were, again, fairly successful until we've had some of challenges

Mark Partin (18:49.363)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (19:08.168)
as far as least, know, downtowns and retail in general are concerned with the internet and everything else. Here in Columbia, think, you it makes me think of two examples. One that's been great, which is the main street market. So they closed that down. They closed down, I think, four blocks at this point, sometimes six blocks, depending on, you know, the time of year and how popular it is, how many vendors they have of the main street, you know, downtown core. That is not a, you know, primary artery.

Mark Partin (19:13.418)
Right.

Karl McCollester (19:38.141)
of the city so it does make it a little bit easier for them and it is a temporary closure that they just continue to do and then continue to reopen every every every Saturday. So but again that idea of doing that temporary thing on a regular basis even if you're not looking to close permanently.

a street or an intersection that may not be, know, for many of our small towns, that is not a viable use of the space for, you know, for the retail sections that or retail establishments that are there. But, you know, having that temporary closure could be something that they should consider. And then I think, you from my standpoint, the not so good one is right here in Five Points near our office. They went through a, and again, this is a primary artery

that it's part of or adjacent to a US Highway, US 76 that goes right through five points. Harden Street, the tail end of the high track, what they consider the high traffic section ends here in five points. Well, they did millions of dollars in construction, putting up walls to keep college students in check so that they don't cross mid street. And as a result, they've had to make

I think four revisions while they've been finishing it, as they learn that they're putting something in permanently with these walls that then did not at all fit the existing traffic patterns or people's intent for turning intersections. wait, we need to maybe try actually actually think of putting in bike lanes. So let's redo the do the the curb outs for the for the street pedestrian and draw a paint in a bike lane afterwards, all of which potentially could have been accomplished by the same thing.

right now, which is just closing off maybe some of those sections every weekend and letting the college students walk wherever the heck they want to on that street, you know, and seeing if that was a viable option. that, course, is also what many European places do. They have the bollards that come out from under the street and they block it off either during the day or on weekends and have traffic signaling to show that. And then in the delivery times at night when retail needs to get in,

Mark Partin (21:42.656)
Yeah.

Okay.

Karl McCollester (21:56.577)
and refill their stock or during less traffic times on weekdays, they can lower those bollards and it's a regular street with parking. so, all those things can be, by making it more flexible of yourself, by one, trying things temporarily, and then, and only then making a decision of what you want to do. You can do a lot with a few saw horses and some signs that you post, letting people know. There are a lot

Mark Partin (22:20.511)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (22:26.496)
things you can do to experiment with these things as a small municipality that, you know, let you see, you know, does it become a net positive for our community from a quality of standpoint and for our retailers from a commercial standpoint.

Mark Partin (22:40.395)
Yes, you know, one thought that just came to mind with the trial and, you know, your example of five points, you know, a key part of policy, the policy cycle, public policy cycle was the evaluation phase. And far too often we do the evaluation after the policy has been fully implemented and the unintended consequences are revealed. But then there's a pretty heavy lift to

make the adjustments. So by doing this on an extended trial, even four weekends is pretty extended trial, that gives an opportunity for some of those unintended consequences to emerge and they be addressed before you make more permanent, costly investment. So I really like this practically as well as from a policy standpoint that this is a good way to do this.

Karl McCollester (23:13.976)
Mm-hmm.

Karl McCollester (23:29.144)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (23:34.062)
Right.

Yeah, absolutely. What has the same effect, either whether that's traffic or pedestrian encouragement that we can do on a temporary basis, you know, that take there's an interim step between the drawings and the plans and the, you know, the lovely streetscape drawings that I'm sure they showed throughout, you know, business associations, neighborhood associations and everything. What is the intercept between that and the final reality? Right. Is there something we can do to really test whether this is going to make sense? Right. And so they get kudos to them for going on that.

Mark Partin (23:58.604)
Yes.

Mark Partin (24:06.603)
Yeah, this is a, I like to think of it. This is a live action charrette. Instead of planners doing it in a, in in a drawing board, they're doing it in person. Yes.

Karl McCollester (24:13.036)
Yeah, right. Exactly. I like that. I think the term for people is live action role play. So LARPing, I'm trying to think of live action charetting: lacring or something, know. That'd be great. So yeah, so just to wrap up on those two things, I think one of the things for small towns to think about when they're looking at this is

Mark Partin (24:29.417)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (24:42.158)
First of all, when we're talking about these street changes and focus on bicycle safety, as far as the Red Bank example is concerned,

One of the things that it made me think of is that I've watched a YouTuber called Matt Ryder, who's a 50-something year old guy from England, but he's done several long bike trips. And one of the ones he did was the Transamerica Trail, which goes from Washington state to Washington, D.C. And in doing that, he went through a bunch of small towns in the Midwest where he would stop

Mark Partin (25:08.235)
You

Karl McCollester (25:26.486)
and stay the night. And what I found interesting in that was not even just that the town was potentially even doing anything as complex as bike paths or bike trails. Certainly some of them were and that's one of the one of the

plans or one of the reasons the bike trail routed the way it did is it tried to take advantage as many existing trails as possible and link them up to minimize the amount of road time you had, right? Because, you know, riding on a road, even on a small US route in Nebraska, when the cars coming by are going 55 or the trucks coming by is no fun, right? You know, still. But what struck me there is that, you know, there were certainly in addition to the trails and the bike lanes, which are, you know, relatively higher cost things, there are some things where

Mark Partin (25:59.19)
That's right.

Karl McCollester (26:10.512)
You as a small town can be bicycle friendly even just by you know advertising what's available to bicyclists as far as coming in and making sure they Know where they can get food and drink during the day Talking about those kind of things and making sure that the the businesses know because you know there are on this you know the transamerica trail there are You know thousands to tens of thousands of bicyclists every year going across all or some section of this and they are expending thousands of calories

And they are eating like crazy. You saw it over and over again. And so if there's a convenience store or ice cream shop, so we're not even talking about anything fancy, or a burger joint or a bar that is on the way that they can stop at, you are increasing the business of your small town just by advertising towards bicyclists and making them aware of what's there. So that's kind of even just the first level of advertising. And then the second level before you get all the way up to

Mark Partin (26:41.161)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (27:10.432)
trails or bike paths, a lot of the Midwestern towns had a policy on the books that allowed and helped guide bicyclists where they could stay for the night because, again, the overnight bicyclists, probably bringing their own tent. They're happy to, you know, they would love to stay in some place cleaner with a mattress and a shower if that's available, especially because they've been bicycling all day, but...

At least knowing that, if I stop in your town, here's what I need to do. Like here's two locations that potentially, you know, a church or something that takes bicyclists in for the night for 20 bucks or 30 bucks a night. Here's a, or at least here's the green space that if I register with the police or the sheriff's office and here's who I call so that they know I'm going to be there. So I don't get harassed overnight about, you know, sleeping on the town green or something like that. So just even having those policies, which are, you

Mark Partin (28:05.557)
Right.

Karl McCollester (28:07.536)
load of no cost for you, but just talking about those on your website so that people know helps bring in potentially some additional economic development. You're having people who obviously if they have the means to do these kind of bicycling trips, they, you know, and they have a favorable impression of having been there, they're going to both bring in other bicyclists as well as, you know, potentially come back and, you know, like this gentleman have a YouTube channel or an Instagram that, you know, talks about your town and things like that. having all those things again,

Mark Partin (28:21.791)
I guess.

Mark Partin (28:35.371)
Yeah.

Karl McCollester (28:37.696)
are those little nudges that help improve the economic aspect and the economic outlook of your town.

Mark Partin (28:44.679)
and it opens up some more of your tourism possibilities.

Karl McCollester (28:49.866)
Absolutely. Yeah. then from.

Mark Partin (28:50.579)
Yeah. Especially like you said with the YouTube channel, so many people do that now when they do these excursions that it's great free publicity.

Karl McCollester (28:58.99)
Yes. Yes, between YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, mean, know, providing a positive experience to somebody passing through your town can do wonders for your town. And the opposite is also true. Right. You will be, you will get advertised about one way or the other. So, you know, making sure that you have those things in place.

Mark Partin (29:19.445)
That's right.

Karl McCollester (29:23.372)
And I think on the other side, going to Carrboro's thing, that idea of a small town, again, I mentioned it earlier, get out some sawhorses, coordinate with your sheriff's office if you don't have a PD, the investment in some.

temporary road construction signs, I'm sure, are in these small hundreds of dollars. Or, again, see if you can borrow them from the county road crew. But, you make it, you can close off a street, have a couple of buckets of chalk, talk to a couple of vendors to make sure they come in, a food truck or two. There's all, you know, there are certainly, or every town I've been in, there are some entrepreneurial people who would love the chance to, you know,

Mark Partin (29:46.016)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (30:09.072)
cook out and sell their wares as part of an event, especially if that brings other people in and it's better than them going to some random side of the road, right, and hoping that passersby get it, stop and take advantage of it. So having those kind of things can be done for a relatively low cost. not zero effort by any means. It certainly is.

finding the right volunteer or the right staffer willing to be there on a Friday evening or Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon for whatever this closure is so that somebody can be the person to ask questions of and make decisions and make sure that the sawhorses get taken back down at the end of the night and all those kind of things. So there certainly is effort, but it's again from a pure cost standpoint, a relatively low cost way that you can add a significant...

Mark Partin (30:51.366)
Okay.

Karl McCollester (31:02.668)
quality of life aspect to your town, have something to talk about, have something to advertise. So again, so just when people are coming through, they know that it's there and potentially can join in on your community, have a positive experience in your community, even those, both residents and people outside of town.

Mark Partin (31:22.163)
Yes, the potential output far outweighs the input. Yeah, it's not guaranteed, but it does. The potential far outweighs the input. Yeah.

Karl McCollester (31:27.362)
Yes.

Right.

Great. So with that, any final thoughts before I move on to grants?

Mark Partin (31:38.205)
I this, I think both of these are great projects and I've enjoyed learning about them and talking about them today.

Karl McCollester (31:44.525)
Yeah, likewise. So yeah, so speaking of grants and bicycling, the International Mountain Bicycling Association is having a trail accelerator planning grant. So this is again, if you are thinking about if you have like an old Rails to Trails program you're looking at or you have an existing trail or you have the space or, you know.

going through where you have the Polk right away, where you're trying to plan out a trail. They have some trail accelerated grants and those are coming up and due here in a couple days on March 15th.

Next, we have the federal historic preservation grants are currently open and those are due May 7th at 5 p.m. And that is the the link we'll have is for the South Carolina disbursement of those and the deadline around that. But that is a federal grant program. So that is available to you through all 50 states. And then finally, North Carolina side, they have the rural downtown economic development economic development grant. And this is similar, I think, to a extent, but at the state level.

as a CDBG grant, again, really focusing on the rural downtowns for streetscaping, improvements, green spaces, things like that. And the nice thing is it is only a 5 % match and that is due April 23rd. So with that, Mark, I hope you have a lovely weekend and thanks for joining us.

Mark Partin (33:10.07)
Thank you, Carl, and I look forward to having more conversations in the next coming weeks. See ya, bye bye.

Karl McCollester (33:15.661)
Likewise, see you.