Safe Streets for All
What is the Safe Streets for All (“SS4A”) grant and why should the Town apply?
Our area has all the raw ingredients of a great walkable and bikeable community (90% of students live less than 2 miles from school) but we have many dangerous streets that lack the bike and pedestrian infrastructure to make it safe. We need to upgrade our streets, but this is a long and hard process that will not happen overnight. Each and every year the Town needs to make incremental improvements that over time add up to a transformation of our streets. However we need a long-term vision to guide those small changes.
The SS4A grant and the study it funds would create that vision, creating a prioritized list of projects for the Town to tackle. This is the first step to in a long journey and it’s important we take it now.
The study would weigh the benefits (determined by public input and accident data) against the difficulty (both in terms of cost and construction hurdles like right-of-way issues) of all important streets and intersections in the Unincorporated Town. This kind of comprehensive planning done by an engineering firm is expensive and its unlikely the Town would ever fund it without this grant.
The City of Norwalk produced a Pedestrian and Bikeway Transportation Plan that can serve as a model for our study.
We’ve highlighted 12 key roads and a number of intersections that would be studied. Further public input and accident data will add further locations.
None of these streets have easy solutions, but that is why it is critical to have engineers take a long-hard look at each one to determine what is possible and weigh it against costs.
Why is the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant the right one?
The SS4A grant was created as part of the Inflation Reduction Act for the purpose of doing long-term planning. It was overfunded, so the grants are (a) easy to win (no properly formatted application has been rejected), (b) large ($200-400K), and (c) easy to apply for.
Other grants are more difficult to win, smaller, and have higher match requirements.
Why is timing critical?
Our school district’s borders cover all three municipalities, so many routes to school cross municipal boundaries. The Village of Larchmont and the Village of Mamaroneck have both applied for SS4A grants and will begin their planning process soon, so it is critical that the Town stays in sync. There are many junctions (Chatsworth Avenue Bridge, Rockland Avenue Rail and Highway Bridges, Palmer Avenue, Boston Post Road, etc) that touch two or more municipalities so they need to be designed together to be safe and effective.
The Town does not control key streets, why study them?
Key streets including Boston Post Road, Weaver Street, Murray Avenue, and parts of Palmer Avenue are owned by the State or County. However this makes it more important, not less, to do the upfront planning. The Town does not set the time table for these streets, so when the opportunity to upgrade them arises (for example the Boston Post Road repaving) the Town needs to be ready with its own vision which allows them to negotiate with the County or State from a position of strength.
The Village of Mamaroneck is experiencing this now - there's a strong desire from the community and a willingness from the County to change Mamaroneck Avenue because of the recent tragedy, but without a well thought-out concrete ask they are limited to small changes. If the Village had done the initial work they could effectively lobby for the major changes necessary to create a safer, more walkable and bikeable street.
Why is the Town not pursuing this grant?
We can’t speak for the Town but have been told that there are too many other projects at the moment so now is not the time.
To us the recent tragedy on Mamaroneck Avenue only further highlights the need for improved safety infrastructure. This grant and associated plan does not commit the Town to anything and is not a construction project. Rather it is an opportunity for the community and Town to come together to plan out the next 20 years and work towards a more walkable and bikeable community.