City of Lawrence, partnering with Baldwin City and Eudora, gets federal grant to help create plan for eliminating traffic deaths and injuries

photo by: Rochelle Valverde/Journal-World

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., is pictured on Jan. 31, 2023.

The City of Lawrence is one of 12 Kansas communities set to receive a combined total of $5 million in federal funds through a new grant program intended to produce local transportation safety plans, Gov. Laura Kelly’s office announced Thursday.

The City of Lawrence will receive a $160,000 Safe Streets and Roads for All grant — and the Kansas Department of Transportation will cover 15% of the local match required of grant recipients.

“These grants directly support communities across Kansas to improve roadways and save lives,” Kelly said in a release announcing the grants. “I commend these local governments for leveraging federal and state funding to create safety plans for city streets and county roads.”

Lawrence is one of four grant awardees listed as the lead applicant for a multijurisdictional application. In a separate release last week, the city said it was partnering with Baldwin City and the City of Eudora to complete a “Vision Zero Safety Action Plan” for the three cities. The plan would establish a roadmap for how the communities can eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries on their streets through equitable and inclusive community engagement.

Developing such a plan is among the many recommendations outlined in the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Organization’s draft plan guiding the long-term future of the county’s transportation system, “Transportation 2050.” The 30-day public comment period for the plan will end Wednesday, Feb. 22, and it could be adopted by the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s policy board in March.

The largest grant award in Kansas — $1,360,000 — went to Garden City, whose application is for a safety plan for six cities and six counties in western Kansas. Other Kansas communities that secured the grant include Dodge City, Leavenworth, Olathe, Salina, Valley Falls, Cowley County, Leavenworth County and Wyandotte County. The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation and the Southeast Kansas Regional Planning Commission were also grant recipients.

The Safe Streets and Roads for All grant is a five-year, $5 billion competitive grant program funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation.