DOT awards $25 million to support Fayetteville’s road safety efforts

The city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, will use a $25 million U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) grant to install improved lighting and roundabouts along dangerous city corridors.

Fayetteville is one of 385 communities receiving grants from USDOT’s five-year, $5 billion Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program. The awarded funds will help implement the city’s Vision Zero strategy, which seeks to reduce roadway deaths to zero across Fayetteville. The federal agency announced SS4A grants worth a combined $817 million earlier this month.

The city will use the funds to implement five major capital improvements with a total project cost of $33.5 million. These projects will focus on roadways in the city’s “high-injury network (HIN),” USDOT said. HIN corridors are responsible for 60% of fatal and serious-injury crashes, despite representing 12% of the city’s roadway miles. Between 2017 and 2021, 26 people were killed in Fayetteville traffic accidents and 193 were seriously injured, according to the Vision Zero resolution approved by city officials in July.

As part of the project, the city will improve lighting, install roundabouts, create dedicated left- and right-turn lanes at intersections and install raised medians. Other roadway improvements include pedestrian refuge islands, sidewalks, bike lanes, rectangular rapid-flashing beacons, crosswalk visibility enhancements and road diets – roadway reconfigurations that improve safety.

USDOT has already allocated $1.7 billion this year from the SS4A program. The application window for the next round of SS4A grants will open in Feb. 2024.

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