Rep. Steve Cohen (D), a congressman from Memphis, says he was instrumental in getting his city a $13.1 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant to rebuild the city’s most dangerous intersection . He says he sees the project as a memorial to Tommy Pacello, an urban planner and Complete Streets advocate who died in 2020 at age 43.
Such a tribute would add an additional layer of meaning appropriate to the aims of the project. Pacello was a lawyer-turned-urban planner and new urbanist who lived many of the principles behind the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program, for which DOT has awarded $2.7 billion of the $5 billion available so far. The funds, according to ENR, come from the Jobs and Infrastructure Investment Act of 2021.
Communicating the importance of the legislation has been one of the most difficult aspects of the soon-to-be-ending Biden Administration. There could be no better method than looking at the funded Safe Streets and Roads for All program. These are not the large infrastructure projects that are usually the focus of ENR’s functions. Grants typically exceed $25 million, with many much smaller. It’s singles and doubles, rather than home runs, that we mean when we talk about infrastructure’s potential to save lives and prevent injuries.
Take the Memphis Scholarship. The six-way intersection to be rebuilt leads to every other intersection in the city with accident frequency. You can only see the accidents unfold in your mind when you look at an aerial photo of where Lamar Avenue, Kimball Avenue and Pendleton Street meet. The intersection now has a confusing array of signals, faded and disjointed pedestrian connectivity and little guidance on appropriate movements. It practically invites collisions and confusing pedestrians. The city plans to close one of the intersection’s three lanes, simplifying its geometry and operation and installing a new traffic signal and pedestrian facilities, as well as new green spaces.
During his work for the city, Pacello always advocated for safe and walkable neighborhoods.
Grants have a splendid local specificity that doesn’t always come out when we use the word infrastructure.
In the DOT’s latest grant round, Harrisburg, Pa. won nearly $1 million in funding to address rising fatalities by reprogramming 25 signalized intersections in the core downtown area .
Kansas City, Missouri, will get $10 million in funding to implement safety countermeasures on Prospect Ave., which is an important north-south connector for black communities and one of the most dangerous, with lots of reckless driving and speeding.
Kalamazoo, Mich., will raise $25 million to improve safety and eliminate hazards in 130 miles of mostly rural, the goal is to reduce the rate of deaths and serious injuries, 74 and 30, respectively, in the past five years, many of which involve lane departures. .
The infrastructures are intended to promote life and health and a better quality of life.
This is how Pacello saw the streets and cities, and so do we.
