The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the city of Gainesville $800,000 in grand funding earlier this month through the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program.
In a press release sent by the city of Gainesville on Thursday, the funds will be used to assess stretches of roadways within city limits where lighting conditions could contribute to crashes, especially at high-risk locations for pedestrians and bicyclists. City transportation staff will evaluate streets where travel speeds pose higher risks to motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians.
“For some of our neighbors walking and cycling are the main transportation options; for others it is a choice. However, safety is a shared responsibility for all neighbors,” said Gainesville City Manager Cynthia Curry in a press release.
The risk of severe or fatal injury to a roadway user increases at higher speeds, with nearly 30 percent of these crashes occurring along roads with speed limits of 45 mph or higher, as noted in the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan. Data from the action plan, including crash severity, crash type, speed and other factors, were included in the city’s application for the federal grant.
Vision Zero Action Plan data also were part of the SS4A grant submissions by the University of Florida and Alachua County; they received $791,000 and $880,000 in SS4A grants, respectively.
“Adding in local matches, that’s nearly $3 million to advance roadway safety in our community,” said Transportation Planning and Parking Manager Debbie Leistner in a press release. “City, county, state and UF staff are all part of a multi-agency Vision Zero working group where we share data and work together toward the common goal of ending traffic deaths and severe injuries.”
City staff will collaborate with UF counterparts on road safety audits involving SW 34th Street and SW 35th Place, as well as with Alachua County staff in its assessment of two high-risk roads within city limits: SW 20th Avenue and N. 16th Avenue.
“Improving streetscapes and dangerous stretches of highway can save lives, and the people who rely on our roads and streets every day often already know where improvements are needed but until now lacked the funding to address them,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a press release. “With this latest round of grants, funding will flow directly to communities across the country to help put life-saving projects in motion, building on our ongoing work to bring traffic fatalities down to the only number that’s acceptable: zero.”
The SS4A program, established by President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, has provided almost $3 billion to over 1,600 communities nationwide over the past three years of funding, to improve roadway safety planning.
The Gainesville City Commission adopted a Vision Zero policy in 2018 with the goal of eradicating serious injuries and traffic deaths in the city by 2040.