The Kenai Peninsula Borough is getting almost $1 million from the federal government to make a plan for safer transportation across the peninsula.
The money comes from the bipartisan federal infrastructure bill and is part of a grant program called “Safe Streets and Roads for All,” the U.S. Department of Transportation announced today. There are 510 total projects being funded, designed to prevent deaths and serious injuries on roadways.
“Under this federal administration, they rolled out a new initiative that has a goal of striving for zero deaths. Zero deaths associated with our transportation,” Robert Ruffner, the planning director for the Kenai Peninsula Borough, said.
He said the borough was already looking into creating a more comprehensive transportation safety plan when the grant opportunity arose last summer. Ruffner learned that boroughs with formal safety plans open themselves up to more federal highway funding.
“We went to all the municipalities in the borough and let them know if they didn’t already that this opportunity was out there, and we all got together multiple times and developed a proposal to address all the criteria that the federal highways department was looking for,” Ruffner said.
The planning department figured out how much it would cost to make safety improvements to roads across the borough, came up with the $960,000 figure, and submitted the application. Ruffner said they found out they had been awarded the grant yesterday, Jan. 31.
Ruffner said the funding will be used to hire a consultant to assess safety on borough roadways, help create an inventory of all the roads and pathways in the borough, and assess traffic flows in and out of schools.
“I’m excited about it, it’s kind of a big deal to win an award of this size, so stay tuned as we start developing the plans,” Ruffner said.
The Biden-Harris administration is doling out more than $800 million nationally under this grant program, around $2.6 million of which is headed to Alaska. Other Alaska grantees include the City and Borough of Sitka, the Mat-Su Borough, and the City and Borough of Juneau.
The Kenai Peninsula’s award is much larger than other areas in Alaska. Ruffner suspects that’s because all of the borough’s municipalities collaborated on the request instead of submitting individual applications.
“It will be a good, collaborative exercise to work with everyone on the peninsula,” Ruffner said.
The borough and cities are also required to make a $300,000 match to the funding. Ruffner said that match will be divided up between municipalities based on the proportion of roadway contained within each area, and the number of accidents.
