Feds Will Fund Milwaukee County’s Safe Streets Plan

Milwaukee County has secured funding for a countywide road safety plan.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it is awarding the county $800,000 to develop a Safe Streets and Roads for All “Safety Action Plan.” The funding will cover a plan that includes projects in all the county’s 19 municipalities.

“We’re not looking to rubber stamp any one community’s approach to how to deal with reckless driving or how to address zero deaths in Wisconsin,” Donna Brown-Martin, director of the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation (MCDOT), explained to county board supervisors in July 2022. “But we’re looking to pull all of those ideas together and develop a plan.”

The federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program will release $5 billion annually over the next five years. It was created through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The grant requires a 20% match by the county, which would bring the total funding for the project up to $960,000. The department requested $1,000,000 in grant funding.

“According to preliminary state data, Milwaukee County experienced over 100 fatal accidents last year. Road fatalities and serious injuries are an epidemic that demands action,” said County Executive David Crowley in a statement. “I appreciate President Biden and Secretary Buttigieg valuing the urgent need for action to keep our roadways safe and avoid unnecessary deaths. The time is now for collaboration between Milwaukee County and its municipalities to create a comprehensive, data-driven plan to increase safety for all who use our streets and roadways in Milwaukee County. This award moves us closer to that goal and will help us find strategies to keep drivers, bicyclists, transit riders and pedestrians safe.”

The infrastructure bill will unleash billions of dollars for road safety projects over the coming years. And the action plan is the first step local governments must take if they want to tap into these funds in the future. With this countywide plan, MCDOT will do much of the leg work to make sure every municipality in the county is ready to go after these road safety funds.

“What we propose is to incorporate and be the umbrella for all 19 municipalities to roll their plan into our overall plan so that, when it’s time for developing infrastructure needs, meeting the demands for implementation, we’re all moving forward at the same time,” Brown-Martin previously said.

MCDOT will analyze existing road conditions and historical trends in safety. Then it will work with each municipality to establish goals and potential projects that would achieve them. Each municipality will have projects designed specifically for its needs. “Safety in Greenfield is not going to be the same as safety in South Milwaukee or the same as safety in Oak Creek,” she said. “Each community has different safety concerns and this would address those concerns.”

The study will also be another opportunity for local officials to collect information from the public on what they want to see in their transportation systems.

“So we have a wide, diverse community here in Milwaukee County,” Brown-Martin said. “And being able to meet the needs of the individual neighborhoods, in addition to rolling them up in the municipalities, is critical to them being successful.”

The City of Milwaukee won $4.4 million for intersection redesign in the same grant funding round. Six other Wisconsin entities won grants as part of the program: Madison, Park Falls, Brown County, Kenosha County, St. Croix County and the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.