8-Attachment F SGP Grant Application Narrative.pdf

ATTACHMENT F

FY 2024 SAFE STREETS AND ROADS FOR ALL (SS4A) DEMONSTRATION APPLICATION

CITY OF DETROIT, SAFER GRATIOT PILOT

Table of Contents

1. Safety Impact

2. Equity

3. Additional Safety Context

4. Budget

APPENDICES (Submitted as separate files)

A. Map (Data referenced in Section 1. Safety Impact, Section 2. Equity)

B. Michigan Infrastructure Office Match Letter

C. Letters of Support

LINKS

• Detroit Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (Referenced throughout Application)

• Streets for People Plan (Referenced throughout Application)

• 2019 Gratiot Road Safety Audit i

1. Safety Impact

With a traffic fatality rate of 20.4 per 100,00 residents, Detroit was ranked second among cities with populations above 500,000 in 2020. The total count of motor-vehicle-involved roadway fatalities from 2017 to 2021 in Detroit was 613 fatalities, in addition to 2,578 serious injury crashes. In 2022, Detroit adopted a Vision Zero goal as a prerequisite for a more equitable, thriving, and welcoming city and region. Through a collaboration between the City of

Detroit, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), and the Southeast Michigan

Council of Governments (SEMCOG), the Safer Gratiot Pilot presents an opportunity to improve the safety of Gratiot Ave (M-3) for all users, especially the most vulnerable road users on Gratiot:

pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit riders. Gratiot is one of the most dangerous roadways in

Michigan, with its entire length on the City’s High Injury Network. In Detroit, 34% of all crashes resulting in death or serious injury occurred on just 3% of streets between 2017 and 2021, and

Gratiot is the main contributor to that percentage. Demonstration limits along Gratiot, which extend from Randolph St to 8 Mile Rd, had 132 serious injuries and 36 fatalities from 2017 to 2021 across 8.85 miles. Most of these crashes (38%) involved pedestrians.

2. Equity Detroit is the largest city in Michigan, with a population of 639,111. Detroit’s street network was built for a city of nearly two million, more than three times the current population. Detroit has been hard hit by prejudiced redlining, employment discrimination, deindustrialization, white flight, and housing market turmoil. Detroit’s population comprises 90.5% people of color, and

85% of the Detroit population is in Historically Disadvantaged Communities (HDC).

Approximately 81.7% of the Safer Gratiot Pilot passes through an HDC, comprising 32% of people living below the federal poverty level. Of the total 190 crashes that resulted in fatalities and/or serious injuries within a half mile of the Safer Gratiot Pilot area, 64 (34%) occurred in a disadvantaged community. The Safer Gratiot Pilot will be an equitable investment in the safety of a predominately underserved population that are vulnerable users of the road. Detroit is focused on meeting the national challenge for safer streets, as demonstrated through the Detroit

Streets For People (SFP) and Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (CSAP).

Community engagement with various public and private stakeholders supports the need to pilot emergent safety measures on Gratiot. The City’s SFP and CSAP process received approximately

3,100 responses to two rounds of surveys. Grassroots outreach was conducted through community ambassador meetings, public in-person meetings, and online engagement. Through

CSAP engagement, 84% of respondents were concerned about speeding and dangerous driving.

Between two additional active projects touching the corridor, MDOT’s I-94 Mobility Study and

Gratiot Planning and Studying Linkages (PEL) study, there have been three community meetings and 20+ touchpoints with neighborhood districts, block clubs, and other community members.

The message from the public is clear: Detroiters want and need a safer Gratiot with measures that slow traffic and protect all users. For years, a lack of safety has hindered economic development along this corridor of disadvantaged communities. The Safer Gratiot Pilot will be one major step toward a thriving and prosperous future for this corridor and its adjacent communities.

3. Additional Safety Context In addition to the narrative in this section, the information in 1. Safety Impact, and 2. Equity provides information to be considered as “Additional Safety Context.”

As a priority community within the federal Thriving Communities Network, federal funding is critical to meeting the safety needs of Detroiters. In 2021, as part of the SFP process, the City adopted the Detroit Street Design Guide, through which the City commits to designing streets using a Complete Streets and Safe System Approach, prioritizes safety over convenience, focuses on reducing and managing speeds, and aims to maximize separation and minimize conflicts between users.

Gratiot is the longest contiguous segment of the HIN, and it represents the greatest opportunity to reduce the number of fatal and serious injury crashes in Detroit. The

Demonstration limits account for the largest proportion of crashes on the HIN (147 of 857).

Gratiot intersects with several other streets on Detroit’s HIN. Nine intersections and eight road segments are in SEMCOG’s High Frequency Crash Locations, which are prime locations for safety interventions. The high concentration of severe crashes on Gratiot (see Section 1) highlights roadway safety issues that necessitate immediate intervention. A demonstration grant will help inform Detroit’s CSAP and SFP goals by piloting a Safe System Approach corridor-wide that will reduce the number of crashes and eliminate fatal and severe crashes. Detroit has learned lessons from previous traffic calming implementations that were less successful projects. For example, improvements were prioritized in one segment of a corridor rather than corridor-wide, which resulted in driver confusion when encountering a street design that did not match the rest of the corridor. The Safer Gratiot Pilot aims to avoid this issue by establishing consistent design changes and safety countermeasures along the entirety of

Gratiot within Detroit’s limits.

Detroit’s FY2024 SS4A funding request will allow Detroit to pilot the effectiveness of safety infrastructure treatments to meet safety goals and eliminate or reduce severe and fatal crashes on Gratiot. Potential corridor-wide demonstration activities and improvements in the scope of work include, but are not limited to:

• Intersection safety improvements: high visibility crosswalks, temporary curb extensions, rapid flashing beacons, leading pedestrian intervals, hardened centerlines, and other proven safety countermeasures as identified.

• Temporary bus stop enhancements: lighting, bollards, or vertical elements.

• Traffic control and mobilization measures for supplemental enhancements.

The Safer Gratiot Pilot will inform future updates to the CSAP by identifying, implementing, and evaluating a range of various FHWA Proven Safety Countermeasures to improve safety for all users to guide future capital safety improvements. Specifically, the Demonstration will inform and evaluate the list of safety countermeasures in Table 9 of Detroit’s CSAP, and future updates to the plan will highlight the demonstration's effectiveness. The City will partner with MDOT to evaluate performance studies before and after the Demonstration.

The Safer Gratiot Pilot proposes major intersection upgrades such as signal modernization, transit stop enhancements, centerline hardening, uncontrolled crossing installation, and traffic control and mobilization measures. Integrating new technology into the current infrastructure could lower the risk of crashes involving vulnerable road users and vehicles in low-visibility