The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has announced $785 million in grant awards for projects that will increase mobility, improve safety and generate regional economic growth in rural areas across the nation.
The Rural Surface Transportation Grant awards were part of a larger announcement by DOT, which said it was awarding nearly $5 billion to modernize infrastructure in the U.S.
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The awards are expected to improve freight movement and strengthen supply chains, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.
- $40.5 million to Otero County, Colorado, for the US 50 SHIFT project. The project will install twelve individual passing lanes across five segments of the US 50 High Plains Freight Corridor between the urban center of Pueblo and the Kansas state line. The project aims to reduce fatalities and serious injuries by addressing inadequate and unsafe conditions for drivers to pass slow moving vehicles. The project will also widen road shoulders for crash avoidance and emergency vehicle access.
- $37.6 million to the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Pavement Resiliency and Restoration project. The project will restore, resurface, and improve approximately 103 miles of highway connecting Tribal communities within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It will also ensure year-round access for visitors of the Badlands National Park and improve routes included in the tribally designated Crazy Horse Scenic Byway. The project is intended to reduce overturn/rollover and runoff road crashes through the installation of guardrails, widened shoulders, increased pavement friction and other construction methods, the DOT said.
- $26.7 million to Hamilton and Edwards County, Kansas, for the Dairy Farms and Dirt Roads: Bringing Supply Chain Infrastructure to Southwest Kansas project. The project will replace dirt roads serving major dairy facilities in Southwest Kansas with paved, modern roads and stormwater infrastructure. This project includes 6.3 miles of road in Hamilton County and 8.5 miles of road in Edwards County. KDOT predicts traffic will double on these roads when a new dairy farm is fully operational, as the local roads are used for hauling milk to the cheese farm, hauling feed and commodities to the dairy farm, hauling manure from the dairy farm to farmland, hauling cattle to and from the dairy farm, and supporting more than 100 new, full-time employees. The project will also enhance safety for the increased truck traffic by addressing narrow shoulders and poor sight distances.
- $20.4 million to the City of Cullman, Alabama, for the St. Bernard Bridge Replacement project. The project will replace and relocate the existing two-lane St. Bernard Bridge on US-278 / SR-69 which crosses Eight Mile Creek. US-278 will be widened from 4th Avenue to just past St. Bernard Drive to make the adjoining roadway and approach work with the new bridge as part of this project.
Photo by Kaique Rocha