WASHINGTON – A pair of multimillion-dollar projects in Huntsville and Jackson County are among several in Alabama to share more than $40 million through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced today.
The grants are part of $1 billion for 354 local, regional, and tribal communities across the country, including 11 in Alabama, to improve roadway safety and prevent deaths and serious injuries on America’s rural and urban roads.
- The city of Huntsville was awarded $21,640,000 for the Holmes Avenue Medical Access Corridor: Safer Streets to Medical Access for Vulnerable Populations.
The project funds a complete streets transformation on the 3.25-mile stretch of Holmes Avenue that runs from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Cummings Research Park to Spragins Street downtown. - Jackson County was awarded $15,997,284 for the Jackson County Equitable Rural Roadway Improvements project to implement countermeasures at nine rural roadway segments in the county.
The primary project focus is preventing rural roadway departures, crashes, and serious injuries. Rural roadways pose unique safety challenges in Jackson County, including a lack of shoulders, minimal striping, tight curves, elevation changes, and missing guardrails.
Alabama also received $2,589,952 for nine safety planning and demonstration projects, including two North Alabama counties. The grants help communinties better understand safety challenges and begin to identify solutions to make streets, roads, and highways safer.
- The Etowah County Commission was awarded $240,000 to develop its Safety Action Plan.
- The Limestone County Commmission received $200,000 for its Comprehensive Safety Action Plan.
“Through new funding programs like Safe Streets and Roads for All, the Biden-Harris Administration is helping communities of all sizes make their roadways safer for everyone who uses them,” Buttigieg said. “We should be energized by the fact that together we’ve reduced traffic fatalities for more than two years in a row now – but so much work remains to fully address the crisis on our roads.
“Today’s roadway safety grants will deliver funding directly to 354 communities and continue the important work we’re doing to reduce traffic fatalities to the only number that’s acceptable: zero.”
Today’s announcement – a key component of DOT’s comprehensive National Roadway Safety Strategy launched in 2022 – is paired with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s release of its early estimates of traffic fatalities for the first half of 2024, estimating that traffic fatalities declined for the ninth straight quarter, the USDOT said in a news release.
An estimated 18,720 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes, a decrease of about 3.2% as compared to 19,330 fatalities projected to have occurred in the first half of 2023. Fatalities declined in both the first and second quarters of 2024.
“The SS4A program gives local and tribal governments the resources to plan and implement the safety improvements that will make the most difference in their communities,” said Transportation Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg. “They know what is best, and this program leverages that local expertise to save lives.”
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