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The redesign and construction of a stretch of Fort Worth’s East Lancaster Avenue received an infusion of $20 million on Wednesday from a grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
This project will fund the design, right-of-way, environmental, and reconstruction of about 6.5 miles of East Lancaster Avenue between Pine Street and Loop 820 into a multimodal corridor, with accommodations for an integrated high-capacity bus transit service and include dedicated bicycle lanes, sidewalks, landscaped separators between the travel lane and bicycle lane, transit shelters, and street lighting.
It is part of more than $2.2 billion awarded from the RAISE discretionary grant program to 162 infrastructure projects across the country.
“This round of RAISE grants is helping create a new generation of good-paying jobs in rural and urban communities alike, with projects whose benefits will include improving safety, fighting climate change, advancing equity, strengthening our supply chain, and more,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.
The project is part of an endeavor by the city and neighborhoods to reinvigorate East Lancaster, once a burgeoning thoroughfare, with the objective of increasing economic development and mixed-use projects on East Lancaster and improved accessibility to and through the corridor and to downtown. A study found that there were opportunities to redevelop a six-lane highway that was wider than necessary, while increasing access to transit hubs for pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
Seventy percent of the grants are going to projects in regions defined as an area of persistent poverty or a historically disadvantaged community, according to the Transportation Department.
The RAISE program is a discretionary grant program for investments in surface transportation infrastructure.
The East Lancaster Avenue project will replace a functionally obsolete, deteriorating roadway facility with new intersection improvements, drainage, and improved access to multimodal facilities.
The project, according to policymakers, will reduce travel times for bus service along the corridor and provide lower cost transportation options in an underserved community by making available transit, walking, and biking opportunities safer and more available.
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Department of Transportation