FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded $817 million in grants from President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for 385 Safe Streets and Roads for All to 48 cities across the nation.
Out of these cities that received implementation grants, Fayetteville collected the second largest amount in the United States.
The program is designed to give grants to improve safety and help prevent death or serious injuries on roadways.
"To make it easier for people to get to school to work, to get connected with one another, and to make sure that we try to build a very safe way to prevent injury and to prevent death," Mitch Landrieu, senior advisor to the president and White House Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator, said.
Fayetteville applied for this grant with five projects in mind. This grant will allow them to get the ball rolling on projects much sooner than expected.
"These are not just projects that we came up with because there was a funding source available. These are projects that we had on our list and were underfunded," Chris Brown, public works director for the City of Fayetteville, said.
On Maple Street from Gregg Avenue to Garland Avenue, the city plans to create a safer route for bikes and scooters.
Brown said the Maple Street project will be "a side path that's for bikes only, so it's not a shared-use path for pedestrians, it will be designated for bikes and scooters."
On College Avenue from Sycamore Street, Brown said they plan to make improvements for pedestrians.
"Adding sidewalks, looking at medians, creating additional crossing opportunities for pedestrians, and really just kind of beautifying that street," Brown said.
On South School Avenue from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to 15th Street, they will add onto the existing sidewalks to fill in the gaps.
"There are some sidewalks, but there are some pedestrian gaps. So there are a lot of safety issues that we're trying to work on there."
The city doesn't have any existing plans for sections of Joyce Boulevard and Gregg Avenue, but they do have concerns about potential car accidents.
"We just know that we've got some safety concerns there, so we'll be hiring a consultant to help us come up with solutions," Brown said.
These locations were chosen for the project because they are on Fayetteville's high-injury network. They represent 12% of Fayetteville's roadway miles but account for 60% of fatal and serious injury crashes.
Brown said these improvements are in the beginning stages and the city hopes to have them all completed within the next 4 years.
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