MILWAUKEE — Hundreds of cities and counties across the U.S. will receive a share of over $800 million in federal grants to improve the safety of streets and intersections, under funding announced Wednesday by U.S. Department of Transportation.
That includes $4.4 million going to the City of Milwaukee.
The competitive grants include nearly $590 million to carry out 37 projects making physical safety improvements to roadways in 22 states. An additional nearly $213 million is being distributed in smaller increments for hundreds of traffic safety planning efforts across the country.
The grants are the first under the Safe Streets and Roads for All program, which ultimately will provide $5 billion over five years. The program was part of the federal infrastructure law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in 2021.
Grants generally are intended to promote safety for multiple roadway users, including motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians.
How will Milwaukee's money be spent?
View Milwaukee's accepted pitch for the grants below or read online (page 42).
"Applicant: City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
SS4A Award: $4,400,000
Project Description
The City of Milwaukee will address safety concerns for all road users, especially pedestrians and cyclists, in a project that implements multimodal safety improvements at approximately 26 intersections along 5 corridors in the City’s high-injury network.
Crashes at these intersections resulted from high speeds, reckless driving, disregard of traffic control, or other dangerous driver behaviors. Dated pedestrian facilities, skewed intersections, intersections with five-plus legs, and lack of accessible pedestrian signals create high-risk features.
The project’s safety countermeasures include installing high-visibility markings, upgrading traffic signal equipment, making intersections ADA-compliant, realigning skewed intersections, closing approaches on five-plus-legged intersections, applying road diets, and installing accessible pedestrian signals."
Where will the money go?
The list of 37 projects receiving multimillion-dollar implementation grants can be found here. The projects are in these states:
California
Florida
Georgia
Iowa
Kentucky
Massachusetts
Maryland
Michigan
Montana
North Carolina
North Dakota
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Texas
Washington
Wisconsin
The cities of Atlanta and Philadelphia will receive the largest grants of $30 million each.
Atlanta's grant will help fund improvements to Pryor Street and Central Avenue and connect a south side trail to downtown. The project includes roadway reconfigurations, medians, bicycle lanes, crosswalk lighting and flashing beacons.
Philadelphia's grant will fund improvements along North Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue. The project includes raised medians and pedestrian crossings, intersection modifications and traffic signal improvements.
What are the other grants?
A list of local governments receiving planning grants for roadway safety measures can be found here.
The 473 planning grants range from $6,263 for Mekoryuk, Alaska — population around 200 — to more than $6.3 million for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
California leads the way with 43 planning grants totaling more than $25 million, followed by 34 planning grants totaling $19 million in Florida and 25 such grants totaling nearly $17 million in Texas.
Importance of traffic safety
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has said the U.S. faces a "national crisis of fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways.”
Nearly 43,000 people are estimated to have died in vehicle traffic crashes in 2021 — an increase of nearly one-third over the past decade, according to data from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Data for the entirety of 2022 is not yet available, but estimates for the first nine months indicate that fatal traffic crashes appear to have leveled off or declined slightly. Still, they are significantly higher than levels that existed before the coronavirus pandemic.
Among states, estimated traffic fatalities in the first three-quarters of 2022 rose by the largest percentage in Hawaii, Delaware, Nebraska, Washington and Alaska. Traffic fatalities were down by the greatest rate in South Dakota and Rhode Island.
