Feds Grant $132M to Improve California Roads and Tackle Traffic Fatalities

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced $800 million in grant awards through the new Safe Streets and Roads for All Grant Program includes 50 grants for communities in California.

The competitive grant program, established by President Joe Biden’s infrastructure law, provides $5 billion over five years for regional, local, and Tribal initiatives to prevent deaths and serious injuries on the nation’s roadways. The department also launched a data visualization tool that shows crash hotspots that can help target needed resources.

California received seven awards for implementation projects in this first round of the program:

• $28.9 million for bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements in Contra Costa County. This project includes improvements to pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure at five areas close to schools, major transit stops, and the largest concentration of pedestrian-involved crashes in the county.
• $21.49 million the Florence-Firestone neighborhood in South Los Angeles, which has experienced a dramatic increase in crashes since 2016, with 32 fatal crashes and 177 severe injury crashes between 2017 and 2021. This project will improve safety in the area by installing ADA-compliant curb ramps, curb extensions, raised crosswalks, raised medians, pedestrian refuge islands, speed cushions, high-visibility crosswalks, among other improvements.
• $17.6 million for the Western Addition Community Safe Streets Project in San Francisco. This project will upgrade traffic and pedestrian signals and crossings, deploy better speed management strategies and other safety improvements at 16 intersections to improve safety for these vulnerable road users.
• $15 million to help the Alameda County Transportation Commission address safety concerns for all road users, especially pedestrians and cyclists, along San Pablo Avenue. The project includes bus bulb-outs and bus stop relocation, in-lane transit stops for better speed moderation, and the creation of parallel bike routes.
• $12.9 million for Modoc County to improve safety along two corridors located in rural disadvantaged communities and Tribal areas that have the County’s most dangerous crash history: County Road 91 and County Road 1.
• $9 million to make safety improvements along La Brea Avenue, which is currently poses safety risks for pedestrians. An average of 11.2 pedestrians and 3.2 bicyclists are injured annually in the corridor. The project includes new pedestrian crosswalks and signals; sidewalk repairs; upgraded markings; street tree plantings; and upgrades to the transit user experience to support the city’s Vision Zero goals.
• $2.2 million for Wildomar, a historically rural community, to execute infrastructure improvements in its most disadvantaged neighborhood. The project includes adding bicycle lanes adjacent to vehicle travel lanes, improving sidewalks, and installing three roundabouts along a 0.19-mile segment that links two planned bicycle corridors.

Topics California