Carver Tract, an unincorporated community situated as a "county island" between Indio and Coachella, will have sidewalks across its entire 200-home neighborhood within approximately one year. This milestone was achieved following the recent approval of funding by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.
Supervisor V. Manuel Perez presented the allocation of $3.5 million from the Fourth District's portion of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars to fund the project, a recent Riverside County news release said. The Board of Supervisors gave its unanimous approval in a 4-0 vote during a July 11 meeting. The ARPA monies will fill a gap that could have left the third and final phase of the project unfunded for years to come, a news release said.
"Carver Tract is an area that's been unincorporated forever, an area that's been neglected for a very long time," Perez said in the release. "It's not in the City of Coachella, it's not in the City of Indio."
Perez envisions that sidewalks will boost the quality of life for hardworking families. Before the first phase of the sidewalk construction started last fall, the development had been lacking sidewalks since its inception shortly after World War II.
"Unfortunately, the youth and the families there have never had sidewalks or any lighting and we're finally, through ARPA money, able to use that money for the right reasons to improve the quality of life for these individuals that deserve it, that deserved it, for generations," he said in the release. "These are folks that are farmworkers, these are folks that are service workers, these are folks who deserve a better place to live and I think that's our responsibility."
The Riverside County Transportation Department is now in the final phase of designing the Carver Tract Sidewalk Safety Improvement Project Phases 2 and 3, the release said. The project will feature drainage improvements and the completion of all sidewalks.
Now that funding is in place, the two phases can be combined, the Board of Supervisors said in the release. It is anticipated that construction work on the sidewalks will kick off next spring.