This week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined Gov. Roy Cooper for a walk along a busy Durham transit corridor that is set to receive $12 million in federal infrastructure funding to make needed safety improvements.
Buttigieg is making stops around the country to highlight projects funded as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). While many projects grab headlines.
“You’ve got a community here that has been left out of some of the historic rounds of transportation infrastructure investment,” Buttigieg said to Stateaffairs.com during the visit while standing in front of Antioch Baptist Church on Holloway Street. “We’re changing that and it’s going to matter to neighbors, it’s going to matter to businesses, it’s going to matter to the congregation of this church.”
The grant announced on June 26 is intended to improve safety and efficiency along Durham’s Holloway Street corridor, which is the city’s busiest transit route. It will improve 33 intersections—including Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) curb ramps and crosswalks.
The total projected cost of the project is just over $15 million, with the city providing about $3 million to match the $12,044,800 federal grant.
“People here deserve excellent sidewalks and transit service, all the other things that a good streetscape ought to have,” Buttigieg said. “The vision has been here for a long time, but not the money. We’re here to change that.”
It is the second day Cooper and Buttigieg have reviewed projects in the state. In addition to the passenger rail line slated to run from Raleigh to Richmond, Va., the two have also visited the groundbreaking of the Salem Parkway Multi-Use Trail in Winston-Salem, N.C.
“North Carolina has gotten a large part of this pie,” Cooper said. “So we’re glad to have Secretary Buttigieg here to just review some of the projects all across our state that are really going to help improve transportation.”
Source: Stateaffairs.com, WFDD.org
