The Seattle City Council Transportation Committee voted unanimously last week to approve an ordinance that would restrict spending any funds in the 2009 Seattle Department of Transportation budget toward construction of the Mercer Corridor Project but will allow the project to go out for bid.

The ordinance will go to a full council vote Monday, April 6.

Prior to the vote, the council had given a green light toward the Mercer Corridor Project in anticipation of $50 million in funding from the state.

However, the state legislature did not approve any money for the project city, but instead approved funding toward upgrades to major state-owned roads, said Katherine Fountain, legislative assistant to council member Jan Drago, chair of the council transportation committee.

The project will create a two-way Mercer Street complete with vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian modifications, as well as a tree-lined median and on-street parking. The changes are meant to increase walkability and safety along a narrower Valley Street, improve freight access to the Ballard and Interbay neighborhoods, and keep traffic moving between SR-99 and Interstate-5.

"Council (President) Richard Conlin, had led the recent bill to pull back money," Fountain said.

The bill will still allow the transportation department to get bids on the Mercer Corridor Project but will restrict any construction or spending of money.

"The idea there is to get a real pricing idea and what actual costs will be," Fountain said. "It will still allow everything, such as property acquisitions and looking at bids, so they get to see and do everything but break ground."

Grace Crunican, Director of the transportation department, said under the ordinance construction bids would be good for 60 days.

“The bidding process will take six weeks time to put bids together,” Crunican said. “We expect to go out to bid by the end of June, first of July.”

“If we build something we should have funding for it,” council member Nick Licata said. “The state legislature did not do us any favors by not giving us any money.”

He went on to say that even though no work can actually be done on the project, it will allow the council to better understand how much it could cost.