As a condition of receiving an $18 million federal grant for safety improvements in South Los Angeles, the City Council on Tuesday authorized its transportation department to tell its federal counterpart that it will pursue added funds to complete the scope of the work.
The project will improve the Broadway Corridor in Councilmen Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Curren Price's districts. According to Harris-Dawson, it is one of the most dangerous in the area in terms of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths and injuries.
On Feb. 27, the USDOT made funding available for transportation projects of "national and regional significance that will result in good paying jobs, improve safety, apply transformative technology and explicitly address climate change and racial equity."
In March, LADOT submitted a $45 million grant application matched by $64.5 million from state, local and other eligible funding sources for the Community Infrastructure Resiliency Zone Project in South Los Angeles.
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That project's proposal included safe street infrastructure, community mobility infrastructure and digital mobility infrastructure.
Last Thursday, the USDOT told Los Angeles that it could receive a reduced grant of $18 million if the city limited the project to the safe street infrastructure component and guaranteed completion. The city would have to designate $13 million in future years to complete the project.
On Monday, city staff met with USDOT and agreed to move forward pending the mayor and City Council's approval, the latter of which was received during Tuesday's council meeting. The motion was introduced verbally because the matter came to the council's attention after the meeting's agenda was posted.
The city intends to use a mix of local funds to complete the work, including potentially SB1 funds, Measure M funds, Measure R funds, Proposition C funds and more.
"We want to thank the Department of Transportation, they worked with our council team as well as District 9 to work on a grant for the Broadway Corridor, one of our most deadly corridors in terms of pedestrian and bicycle deaths and injury," Harris-Dawson said. "We applied for $45 million. The Department of Transportation is prepared to reward $18 million. We've got to certify that we can still do the work for the reduced amount. The announcement will be (tomorrow) morning, which is why we have to take the vote this morning."
