Four Detroit Neighborhoods Awarded Transportation Grant

Four lucky Detroit neighborhoods will be seeing some massive changes in their transportation options shortly thanks to an Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies Deployment grant gifted by the Federal Highway Administration.

The grant will give Detroit the ability to use state-of-the-art technologies to improve safety and connectivity across southwest Detroit, the Riverfront, Corktown, and Livernois-McNichols.

Efforts to improve the local transportation will include several factors, such as free wi-fi being offered on buses and other forms of public transport, app development that will connect residents with transit options, and construct a new infrastructure that will pave the way for self-driving cars and other forms of high-tech mobility resolutions.

Mayor Mike Duggan stated that his vision for the grant is to create an easier, safer transportation solution for Detroit. Another concept Mayor Duggan has lined up for his city is to create better communication and detection equipment at intersections in order to safeguard pedestrians at all crosswalks.

Mark de la Vergne, chief of mobility innovation for the city of Detroit, recently explained Mayor Duggan’s views to The Detroit News.

“We envision that the technology implemented by this grant will have a number of positive impacts on traffic, from simply better coordination of traffic signals, to more advanced ideas, such as having traffic signal timings react in real time to information they receive from cameras and sensors,” said de la Vergne.

Currently, there is no date set for when these improvements will be put into effect. Before anything can enacted, there are meetings with the Federal Highway Administration that have to take place first.

This grant was launched with the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. The grant application is open to state departments (transportation, local governments, transit agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, and similar entities).

In 2017 alone, 10 grants have been approved with over $54 million in funds being dispersed.

News & Image Source: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2017/10/05/federal-grant-boost-detroit-neighborhoods/106322026/