FHWA provides $8 million to 35 tribes for transportation safety improvement projects

Updated May 3, 2016

damaged cracked road cracks asphaltThe Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is providing roughly $8 million to 35 Native American tribes to complete 54 transportation safety improvement projects on tribal lands. The move is part of the agency’s Tribal Transportation Program Safety Fund.

Seventy-three recognized tribes submitted 130 applications for the program, with a request total of $36.8 million.

“Road safety is important to communities everywhere, and especially on tribal lands,” says FHWA Administrator Gregory Nadeau. “From improving intersections to building bicycle or pedestrian paths, these new funds will help to make tribal communities safer and better equipped for the needs of the traveling public.”

FHWA says the funds are for safety planning, engineering improvements, enforcement and emergency services and education programs.

Some grant recipients include:

  • The Hannahville Indian Community in Michigan will receive $746,495 to build 3.5 miles of concrete pedestrian trail, which is expected to improve safety by eliminating pedestrian-vehicle conflicts that, in the past five years, led to one death and two serious injuries.
  • The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota will receive $624,063 to reconstruct more than 14 miles of road on the reservation’s most dangerous road corridor. The project will correct substandard road conditions, such as surface cracking and deterioration, narrow road shoulders and poor line of sight.
  • The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in Washington will receive $600,000 to improve local safety by realigning three dangerous county road intersections with SR 101.
  • The Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana will receive $498,028 to build a one-mile-long separated multi-use pedestrian-bicycle path from one end of Busby, Mont., to the other. The path will improve safety for pedestrians and offer residents an additional travel choice to the local school, post office, grocery store and housing.
  • The Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma will receive $315,000 for various road safety improvements, realignment and surfacing of First Street and the SH18/US64 intersection, with increased sustainability along with quality of life improvements for Pawnee Nation and the City of Pawnee.

More information on the program, including the full list of projects, is available here.