Federal funds awarded for Amish roadway safety

Geauga County is being awarded more than $9.6 million to address conflicts between motorized vehicles and non-motorized buggies.

The $9,651,000 comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development transportation discretionary grants program. The project will construct safety modifications on county roadways.

“This is great news for the Amish community in Northeast Ohio,” U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said. “As the center of the fourth largest Amish settlement in the U.S., I know that the leaders of Geauga County are working to maintain the safe use of the Amish buggy and pedestrian accessible roads. This grant will help the county create safer roadways for the Amish and non-Amish alike.”

Modifications include creating non-motorized buggy lanes, implementing advanced motorist alert systems, installing conflict warning systems with flashing beacons, and posting school-zone and pedestrian warning signs on roadways, according to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s, DOhio, office.

“It is important that we improve the safety, accessibility, and mobility of Ohio’s rural infrastructure,” Brown said. “I will continue to fight to make sure that every community has the support needed to maintain safe and accessible roadways.”

U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, RBainbridge Township, in July wrote a letter in support of the project to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao.

Joyce said in the letter that safety concerns exist when pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles that move 5-8 miles per hour share the roadway with vehicles traveling at speeds up to 55 miles per hour.

“Rural roadways are often more narrow than urban roadways, resulting in very little room to maneuver around horse-drawn Amish buggies or pedestrians,” Joyce wrote. “Recorded vehicular accidents involving Amish buggies in this area have led to serious injuries and fatalities.”

BUILD launched in April, replacing the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant program. The grants for Fiscal Year 2018 are for “investments in surface transportation infrastructure and are to be awarded on a competitive basis for projects that will have a significant local or regional impact,” according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Applications for funding were due in July and projects were evaluated “based on merit criteria that include safety, economic competitiveness, quality of life, environmental protection, state of good repair, innovation, partnership, and additional non-federal revenue for future transportation infrastructure investments.”

At least 30 percent of the funding was required to go to projects in rural areas.