Three Black Hills communities receive safer streets grant

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Rapid City, Sturgis, and Spearfish were three of the four South Dakota cities given ‘Safe Streets and Roads for All’ grants.

The safe streets for all grant is given by the U.S. Department of Transportation to cities around the country aimed at helping prevent vehicle-pedestrian collisions. Sturgis city officials say this funding can help, especially during their busiest times.

“We are a small community, a town of 7,000 people and a few weeks out of the year we swell to hundreds of thousands of people,” said city of Sturgis director of public works Rick Bush. “You know that’s a unique aspect of things. We’re very appreciative this is a big sum of money for a small community.”

Yesterday near the 1100 block of West Omaha Street, a vehicle was traveling westbound when it collided with two pedestrians who were crossing the road. Rapid City officials hope that this new grant can implement better ways of keeping pedestrians and vehicles safe.

“Specifically, this grant is all about reducing fatalities on our roadways,” said Rapid City grants division manager Jamie Toennies.

“And so, we’re gonna be able to use it to collect a lot of data and understand where there are issues within our roadways. And then put together an action plan that we can then use to address those so that we can at the end of the day, make our streets safer for all of our residents and visitors to Rapid City.”

Each community is receiving $160,000 and Rapid City is set to invest an additional $40,000 bringing their total investment to $200,000.

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