Jim Thorpe Borough Council is applying for a Commonwealth Financing Authority multimodal transportation grant that would help fund upgraded crosswalks and several other items called for in a parking study completed last year.

The borough has been part of a focus group, along with the Carbon County Chamber and Economic Development Corporation, state Rep. Doyle Heffley’s office, Carbon County Commissioners, and others, meeting monthly to discuss the projects.

“The grant would help us to do streetscape in downtown Jim Thorpe, which means it’s going to upgrade streets, sidewalks, crosswalks, signage, traffic flow and more,” Mayor Michael Sofranko said. “We’re hoping we can get in the pipeline here and every year begin to do what they call a constant improvement. Getting a little bit of grant funding at a time makes life a lot easier for the politicians and elected officials who have to push these grants. It makes the borough’s ability to pay for the engineering that needs to be done a little better as well.”

One of the observations in the parking study was that crosswalk markings were minimal and not well-striped.

The project, among other things, would address every single crosswalk, Sofranko said, from the front of the county courthouse, all the way up Broadway as far as the Mauch Chunk Opera House.

New crosswalks would be added at Quarry Street and at the Mauch Chunk Opera House.

“We did discuss the possibility of a midblock crosswalk down by the pizzeria area,” Sofranko said. “There is also an additional crosswalk is going to be added down toward MYST. The county is involved with paying a portion of that because it is going to their new building.”

Acquiring the grant would be a collaborative effort. The total project cost is estimated at $820,820. The grant would cover $796,650. Other commitments include a $93,998 Jim Thorpe Borough match, $22,420 Carbon County match, $5,000 Pocono Mountain Visitors Bureau contribution and a $1,500 Jim Thorpe Tourism Agency contribution.

The $100,000 parking study, which required a $20,000 match, was completed last year by the Northeast Pennsylvania Alliance.

One of the areas the study touched on was improving vehicular and pedestrian safety and decreasing traffic congestion.

A particular crosswalk being addressed is located near the Carbon County Courthouse Annex at Hazard Square.

“It moves that crosswalk, you know the one where everyone just steps off the curb and walks in front of you, to the actual curb radius, where it should be,” Sofranko said. “It takes that over into the county parking lot, rather than where it is in the middle of the block right now. When we’re done with all of this, you’re probably looking at crosswalks that are going to resemble that of cobblestone.”

Some prep work for the upgrade projects has already been done.

“Some of the lines have been painted downtown,” Sofranko said. “That was to try to prepare and show what we were looking to do and where we were looking with crosswalks and sidewalks. The light post downtown has been painted. These were all things that came out of our meetings.”

Another thing brought up in the meetings was the possibility of putting sidewalks in front of where Woods Ice Cream is located on Susquehanna Street.

Sofranko said there are underground storage tanks and a few other things that have to be addressed in that area before such work could take place.

“That will be part of another grant down the road,” he added.

One item not addressed in the project is the abrupt end of sidewalks leading into town from the “AJ” Baddick Memorial Bridge. For years, the borough has discussed the extension and completion of the sidewalk, which currently forces people out onto Lehigh Avenue, Route 209, near the train station.

“Wayne Nothstein at the county is working on this and we take his word for it,” Sofranko said. “There was a lot involved there and there just wasn’t enough time before this grant due date to get all of that squared away.”