Milwaukee Wins $8 Million To Make Streets Safer

N. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive looking north from W. Burleigh St. Photo by Urban Milwaukee staff.

Milwaukee County isn’t the only entity receiving funding from the federal Safe Streets and Roads For All grant program.

The City of Milwaukee will receive $8 million in addition to the $25 million the county is receiving.

The city’s award will fund safety improvements on N. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and W. Forest Home Avenue.

“This investment puts safety first, especially for our kids. By improving crossings, calming traffic, and upgrading transit access along MLK Drive and Forest Home Avenue, we are making these corridors safer for families and neighbors who use them every day,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson in a statement.

The two streets are key traffic and commercial corridors through the city’s north and south sides. Both are also part of the city’s data-driven “High Injury Network.”

According to the Department of Public Works (DPW), the two corridors will receive improvements aimed at making them particularly safer for children. “The city will be enhancing pedestrian crossings, improving transit boarding areas, and adding traffic calming features, focusing improvements near schools, health and childcare facilities, libraries, and parks,” said DPW in a press release. Traffic calming features, including curb extensions and raised crosswalks, reduce vehicle speeds. Curb bump-outs (extensions) and other changes to the street width also reduce the distance a pedestrian must cross the roadway while vulnerable to a collision.

The King Drive project is planned for the 1.7-mile segment between N. 7th St., near Interstate 43, and W. North Ave. It includes the complicated Five Points intersection. The area to the south received traffic-calming improvements in recent years.

The Forest Home project is planned for a one-mile stretch between W. Historic Mitchell Street, the street’s northern terminus, and W. Lincoln Avenue. As a result of Forest Home running diagonally across the street grid, the street has a number of irregular intersections.

“This grant will allow us to comprehensively address safety problems on these corridors by incorporating Complete Street interventions that are proven to reduce crash risk,” said DPW Commissioner Jerrel Kruschke. “Milwaukee continues to invest in infrastructure and improve safety for everyone using our streets.”

The City of Milwaukee is required to provide a $2 million local match to access the grant funding. The total project budget, according to DPW, is $10 million.

According to a Wisconsin Department of Transportation traffic count map, traffic on the King Drive segment tops out at 12,500 vehicles per day. The Forest Home segment has 6,600 vehicles per day at its peak.