The US Department of Transportation has awarded $1 billion in grants for road, street and other infrastructure improvements to prevent road deaths and injuries in America’s communities.
The grants, which the DOT announced on September 5, will go to 354 projects and plans in cities, suburbs, rural areas and tribal communities.
Consult the information sheet here.
U.S. DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a Sept. 4 media call to preview the funding announcement that projects winning grants include intersection redesign and improvements to sidewalks, streets, pedestrian crossings and cycle paths.
The funds continue DOT’s rollout of funds from the Jobs and Infrastructure Investment Act of 2021. The landmark legislation includes $5 billion over five years for the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program.
To date, DOT has awarded $2.7 billion in SS4A grants.
Beneficiaries include Memphis, Milwaukee
Also on the media call was Memphis, Tenn., Mayor Paul Young, whose city won a $13.1 million grant to make improvements to what Young called the “most intersection dangerous” in the city and “the number 1 location for the frequency of accidents in the city”. .”
Young said of the new grant, “This is a big deal for the people of Memphis.”
The city plans to close one of the three lanes of the six-way intersection, simplify the geometry and operation of the intersection, and install a new traffic signal and pedestrian facilities, as well as new green spaces.
Among the largest grants in the latest round is $25 million to the city of Milwaukee for the planning, design and construction of two miles of busy Center Street. The corridor now has wide motor vehicle lanes, but narrow, unprotected bike lanes. According to the DOT, the corridor also has “parking lanes that many drivers use to recklessly pass on the right.”
Planned “safety interventions” include adding fully separated bike lanes, as well as widening curbs and raised intersections.
Another $25 million grant went to the city of Long Beach, California, to add two miles of curb-level protected bike lanes, eight new crosswalks and additional traffic stops, among other improvements .
The DOT said it received 529 applications in the new round of S4S4 grants totaling $2.6 billion. The DOT awarded just over $1 billion to the 354 selected proposals.
Of the total selections, 70 are for grants for the implementation of security projects and programs; 284 are for planning and demonstration activities.
DOT said it expects to announce the winners of its SS4A 2024 final round in November.
There has been some improvement in reducing highway fatalities, but Buttigieg said much more progress is needed.
Along with the SS4A grants, the DOT also announced its latest early quarterly fatality estimates. They show that deaths fell by 3.2% in the first half of 2024 to 18,720. It is the ninth consecutive quarterly decline of this key benchmark.
Still, Buttigieg said the death toll “is really at a crisis level in this country, comparable to gun violence in terms of the number of lives we lose.”
