Courtesy RTC
An artist’s rendering depicts the look of the Reimagine Boulder Highway project.
Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2021 | 2 a.m.
The $1.2 trillion infrastructure and jobs bill that President Joe Biden signed into law last week opens up billions for grant funding over the next five years for projects to make roads safer.
It’s comes at a dire time for Nevada, which has seen 315 people killed in traffic fatalities in 2021, an increase of 24% from 2020, according to the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.
Additionally, about 50 pedestrians have died in Clark County, and motorcycle fatalities are up 47%. Bicyclist fatalities are up 300%, and scooter and moped fatalities are up 300%.
The RTC, which expects to start applying for grants in the first or second quarter of 2022, will seek funding for advanced intersection analytics that evaluate drivers’ speed, red-light running and pedestrian movements, said MJ Maynard, chief executive officer of the RTC. It will identify the biggest problem areas and where near-misses are occurring.
The gathered data will be shared with other jurisdictions and used to propose engineering design solutions, Maynard said.
Although traffic and transportation officials say it’s too early to nail down exact amounts they will be seeking in grant funding, they plan to apply for as many grants as possible in a couple of months.
“The goal here is to bring back as much federal funding to the state of Nevada that we can,” Maynard said. “We've got a great grant team, and they are very aggressive. I always say they smell money, and we go after it.”
The RTC will also seek additionally funding to buy virtual mirrors for city buses, Maynard said. Large, protruding side mirrors on transit buses are problematic, she said, and can hit things or miss blindspots.
Virtual mirrors will remove blindspots for bus operators, which will help boost safety for transit riders, pedestrians, and other vehicles on the roadway.
“We are going to go after as many grants as we can,” Maynard said.
The RTC will receive more than $150 million in new funding — aside from grant funding they will apply for — to improve roadways and transit through various projects, said Justin Jones, vice chair of RTC’s Board of Commissioners and a member of the Clark County commission.
With new funding, the RTC will upgrade its overall central traffic signal control software and expand its signal control pilot program, which has been set up on Eastern Avenue and uses real-time information through cameras and other machines to adjust signal patterns depending on the state of traffic rather than operating on a fixed schedule, Maynard said.
It not only decreases travel time, but it also makes drivers less likely to run red lights and cause crashes, Maynard said.
The RTC isn’t the lone agency that will go after grant funding to improve traffic safety.
Andrew Bennett, public information officer for the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety, said it will seek funding to increase crash data collections as well as for its Joining Forces program, which works with 26 agencies to focus on key behavior that causes crashes, such as impaired driving and distracted driving, Bennett said.
They will also try to get additional overtime funding for law enforcement organizations to increase their presence on roadways, Bennett said.
The office also wants to receive more funding to increase public service announcements about traffic safety that would be on TV, radio or traditional marketing.
Bennett said the Office of Traffic Safety did not yet have a specific breakdown of how much money it will receive through the infrastructure bill but just said it is a "significant" amount.
The funding bill will provide $2.5 billion to the Nevada State Highway Fund over the course of five years that will maintain and build new roads as well as address needs of bicyclists, motorists, pedestrians and public transit users, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation.
“It’s going to save us time, it’s going to save lives, and it’s going to save Nevadans’ hard-earned money,” Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen said.
