County Creating Plan to Combat Reckless Driving

Cleanup after a single-vehicle crash on E. Mason St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The Milwaukee County Department of Transportation is advancing a project that should open the county up to millions in federal transportation funding.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by Congress in 2021 created the Safe Streets and Roads for All Program, with $5 billion to disburse through 2026. But in order to become eligible for the vast majority of this funding, a local government must first develop a “Safety Action Plan” filled with potential road safety projects. MCDOT is taking the first steps necessary to create that plan.

The department secured $800,000 in federal funding to create the plan and is now looking for a consultant to assist in its development. The end goal of the program is funding infrastructure and other projects that make transportation systems across the country safer. For Milwaukee, reckless driving will be an issue given particular attention.

“Reckless driving has reached a crisis level [in] Milwaukee County,” county officials told prospective consultants. “Like many urban areas in the U.S., injuries and fatalities caused by reckless driving have increased in recent years in Milwaukee. Our pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and drivers demand and deserve a data-driven, effective plan to increase transportation safety in our community.”

MCDOT has been working with municipalities located in the county and doing the early leg work to make sure they can collect some of the funding once the federal spigot is turned on. “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,” MCDOT Director Donna Brown-Martin has said.

Municipalities will have projects specific to their needs designed and incorporated into the plan. All of this work is being rolled into a greater Complete Communities Transportation Planning project aimed at multi-modal safety and access across the county. A “Complete Communities” planning model is one that employs “an integrated approach to transportation and land use planning and community design that meets the needs of people of all ages, abilities, ethnicities, and income levels,” according to MCDOT.

This summer, MCDOT wrapped up a traveling public input “road show,” as officials called it, on reckless driving and transportation safety. This information will inform the new action plan and lead to concepts and projects for transportation safety. On the issue of reckless driving specifically, transportation officials identified “hotspots” where residents are most impacted by the problem to gather input and ideas.