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In a bid to make McLennan County’s roads less dangerous, the Waco Metropolitan Planning Organization will apply for newly available federal funding for safety improvements in areas most prone to collisions between vehicles and everyone else on the road.
The federal government established the Safe Streets and Roads for All competitive grant program as part of the $500 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021. Local entities can pursue the funding for projects designed to reduce deaths and injuries on the road. The program has a budget of $1 billion per year from 2022 to 2026, and recipients must cover 20% of project costs.
“The idea isn’t limited to any … one kind of construction, but more about how we’re going to improve safety overall,” Waco MPO Director Mukesh Kumar said.
Under the program’s rules, funding can be used to create a comprehensive safety action plan, pay for planning, design and development of the projects identified in that plan and finally to carry those projects out.
Kumar said the MPO will soon apply for a grant to support a $700,000 effort for McLennan County’s comprehensive safety action plan, which will include safety projects identified by city governments in the county. The program would cover $560,000 of the cost, and cities applying for the grant together would be responsible for the rest.
In the coming years, local entities would apply for more grants to carry out the projects identified in the action plan.
“Our expectation is that we’ve fully fleshed out projects that are part of the plan, and then all of the municipalities, together, will apply for a series of projects,” Kumar said.
He said a steering group composed of Waco MPO members will meet on a regular basis and come up with a list of safety projects to include.
Eric Terrazas, director of economic development for the Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, represents the chamber on the MPO Technical Committee. He said he is in charge of plans to redevelop La Salle Avenue into a more pedestrian-centered corridor, a job made more challenging by La Salle’s lack of continuous sidewalks.
“Most (walkers) that I know of just avoid the road in general,” Terrazas said. “I’m sure there have been (accidents), but most people just avoid trying to cross six lanes of traffic.”
Terrazas said auto-pedestrian accidents are not common along La Salle Avenue, but that could change if the area becomes a draw for foot traffic without any new safety measures.
“Obviously when we talk about safe streets, we really need to work on improving the safety of pedestrian ways,” Terrazas said.
Waco Public Works Director Amy Burlarley-Hyland said Valley Mills Drive was the first corridor that came to mind when she learned about the grant program. She said Valley Mills Drive and Waco Drive both lack continuous sidewalks but have considerable foot traffic and a history of auto-pedestrian collisions.
“Other projects, we tend to apply to TxDOT as they come up and we identify the needs,” Burlarley-Hyland said. “But that’s the one that’s on the top of my wish list.”
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Rhiannon Saegert is a graduate of the University of North Texas who formerly worked at The Ardmoreite in Ardmore, Okla., the Denton Record-Chronicle and Eater magazine.
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