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Houston is about to give one of its most dangerous stretches of road a multi-million dollar makeover.
The City of Houston announced at a city council meeting Wednesday that the federal government is chipping in $28.7 million to enhance safety measures on a stretch of Bissonnet Street between S. Dairy Ashford Road and Hillcroft Avenue.
The seven-mile section of Bissonnet runs from Bissonnet and S. Dairy Ashford near the Alief area, to Bissonnet and Hillcroft, located between Sharpstown and Bellaire in west Houston. It's one of the deadliest roadways in the Bayou City: data from the city of Houston shows that more people die in fatal car accidents on Bissonnet than on any other street in Houston.
The city secured the funds to improve safety on Bissonnet through a federal grant program called Safe Streets and Roads for All. Houston is one of 510 communities to receive funding for safety improvements through the program, which doled out $800 million in grant awards that were announced by U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday.
"It's a competitive grant from the Department of Transportation," Mayor Sylvester Turner told ABC 13. "It's the largest grant anybody received in the State of Texas," Turner added.
"The project will help reduce traffic deaths and serious injuries along the corridor, which travels directly through the underserved communities of Alief-Westwood, Gulfton, and Braeburn, significantly impacting people of color and families of low income," U.S. Department of Transportation officials wrote in the project's description.
The advocacy group LINK Houston, which pushes for "a robust and equitable transportation network so that all people can reach opportunity," said improvements to this stretch of road have been a long time coming. The organization has named one of the intersections included in the improvement plan amongst the most dangerous intersections in Houston.
