May 17 (UPI) — On Friday the U.S. Department of Transportation announced $63 million in local road safety grants for 99 communities.
The money is from the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure law.
“Bicyclists, pedestrians, and drivers should be safe on our roads and streets, and the Biden-Harris Administration is taking action across the country to make our roads safer for everyone who uses them,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a statement.
He said the grants through the Safe Streets For All program will help improve roads, enhancing safe sharing by bikes, cars and pedestrians.
According the DOT, about 40,000 Americans are killed on U.S. roads each year, even as road fatalities have decreased over the last seven quarters.
The so-called “Infrastructure Law” provides billions of dollars of funding in multiple road safety programs over the next decade, including dedicated separated bike lanes.
Separated bike lanes, the DOT said, can cut crashes by more than half.
The grants will go to local, regional and tribal communities for improvements to road safety, including safety for bicyclists.
“USDOT is committed to helping communities invest in complete streets and connected trail networks that make bicycling safe, comfortable, and convenient for all riders,” USDOT Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg said in a statement.
The grants announced Friday are the first of three rounds of awards to be made in 2024. In 2023 the grants provided $1.7 billion to more than a thousand local communities for road safety.
The second round of road safety grants is set for August.