How Small Grants Make Big Safety Differences
Milwaukee County, Wis., basically decided "we have a problem" when it came to road and traffic safety. Fatal and serious automobile accident rates that had been declining since 1994 stalled around 2010 and had been on the rise since about 2014. County data showed that the crashes were concentrated in the city of Milwaukee. That's what made the federal government's recently announced award of $25 million under the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program such welcome news. What could be more important? Not much.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D), who sought the funds, said in a statement that the thoroughfare on which the work will be done, Center Street, is a vital link in the city but is "one of the most dangerous" corridors in town.
The two-mile-long segment involved is characterized by wide travel lanes, unprotected bike lanes and underused parking lanes on which many drivers recklessly pass on the right. The crash rate involving pedestrians and bicyclists is higher along that stretch, which is also inside disadvantaged census tracts.
The U.S. Dept. of Transportation has so far awarded $2.7 billion of $5 billion available for such grants. The funds, ENR's Tom Ichniowski reports, come from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The Safe Streets and Roads for All program got a major boost from the act's funding, which provides 80% of an individual project's full cost.
Communicating the importance of IIJA legislation has been one of the most challenging aspects of the soon-to-conclude Biden administration. There could be no better way than looking at the safe streets program. These aren't the massive infrastructure projects that typically are the subject of ENR features. Grants usually top out at $25 million, with many much smaller. They are the singles and doubles, rather than the home runs, of what we mean when we talk about infrastructure's potential to save lives and prevent injuries.
DOT recently awarded $13.1 million to Memphis, Tenn., to rebuild the city's most dangerous intersection. The six-way crossroads to be rebuilt leads all other city intersections in crash frequency. Another grant is going to Harrisburg, Pa., which gained almost $1 million in funding to address an increase in traffic fatalities by retiming 25 signalized intersections in its core downtown area.
Kansas City, Mo., will get $10 million to implement safety countermeasures on Prospect Avenue, an important north-south connector for Black communities there and one of the most dangerous, with a lot of reckless driving and speeding. Kalamazoo, Mich., also will pick up $25 million to improve safety and eliminate hazards on 130 miles of mostly rural roads, with an aim to reduce deaths and serious injuries—74 and 30 respectively in the last five years—many involving lane departures.
Infrastructure is meant to promote life, health and higher quality living—and sometimes it's the small projects that really matter the most.
