The City of Bloomington has received over $1.4 million in federal funding to improve street safety.
The money will go towards studying how safe key roads in Bloomington are currently, as well as constructing temporary “demonstrations” like hardened centerlines in intersections to encourage cars to slow down and stay in their lane while turning.
Corridor studies of Bloomington’s major roads would involve reviewing data on crash history, speed history, and then combining that data with public feedback on how safe residents feel on and around roads.
The city is also considering converting some traffic signal locations to all-way stop intersections or roundabouts to reduce vehicle speeds.
Hank Duncan is the city’s Safe Streets program manager. He said that the purpose of the demonstrations is to test how well safety improvement infrastructure projects work before undertaking major installations.
“These are not permanent materials by any means,” Duncan said. “These are being implemented to observe and evaluate and if they work, we would look to getting some funding to do something permanent in the long term.”
Duncan said all road improvement projects the city is planning have one goal.
“We have, as a city, an adopted goal of Vision Zero by the year 2039 that is eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries in Bloomington,” Duncan said. “All of these projects, corridor studies, demonstration projects, maintenance projects, everything is under the same goal to accomplish Vision Zero.”
If the demonstrations prove successful, the city will explore securing more funding for continued safety demonstrations and protected bike lanes, as well as incorporating safety upgrades into regular maintenance.
