Colville Tribes, City of Othello to Receive Federal Funding to Reduce Traffic-Related Deaths

Colville Tribes, City of Othello to Receive Federal Funding to Reduce Traffic-Related Deaths

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and senior member of the Finance Committee, announced that the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the City of Othello will each receive funding to make their roadways safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.

The funding comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program. With this new round of awards, Washington state communities have received a total of $88.8 million for 78 different projects through the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program since it was established.

The grants announced today include:

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation will receive $392,320 for their Assessing Safety and Transportation Access Barriers project. Work will include updating asset and crash data, developing an ADA Transition Plan, and transitioning the 2021 Safety Plan into a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan for the Reservation. Deliverables include an asset management inventory, crash data analysis, an Evaluation and Prioritization packet, and a completed ADA Transition Plan to inform prioritized proven safety countermeasures and future implementation.

The City of Othello will receive $120,000 for Safe Streets Othello: Action Plan for Equitable and Connected Growth. This award will be used by City of Othello to develop a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan covering SR 17 and SR 26 corridors, school zones, and residential areas. Work includes a crash data audit and high-injury network, multimodal safety assessments, public outreach, and an implementation strategy to guide capital projects, code updates, and future Safe Streets and Roads for All applications.

Sen. Cantwell authored the Safe Streets and Roads For All program, steered its authorization through the Commerce Committee, and ensured that the program was among the transportation investments included in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Since the law's signing in November 2021, it has funded more than 1,600 transportation projects in the state including road, bridge, and port projects.

Safe Streets and Roads for All grants help local governments carry out Vision Zero plans and other improvements to reduce crashes and fatalities, including for cyclists and pedestrians. These projects are critical to stem the rise of pedestrian fatalities in the state.

Data about Washington state traffic collisions and fatalities broken down by city and county is available HERE.