 |  | As our year ends, the holiday gives us time to spend with our family to reflect on our many shared accomplishments. Throughout the year, the Broward MPO and its member governments received several gifts in the form of discretionary grants from various agencies within the United States Departments of Transportation (USDOT) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). We were awarded five million dollars for the Safe Streets for All Grant with our partners at Broward County not only participating but providing one million two hundred and fifty thousand in local match dollars as we work to make our streets safer and recommend improvements to our roadways that will make driving, walking and biking safer. We were also awarded the Thriving Communities Grant to help our central Broward cities write grants that improve land use and zoning codes while preparing for the future. This unique opportunity has the USDOT providing all of the partners with paid consultants for a period of two or more years at no cost to our cities and the MPO. We also received the Federal Rail Administration (FRA) Safety and Crossing Elimination Grant to install more safety equipment along the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) at many crossings to add countermeasures to keep vehicles away from the tracks. Broward County and the cities of Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach, Wilton Manors, Fort Lauderdale, Dania Beach, Hollywood, and Hallandale Beach provided the local match for this grant.
With the City of Coconut Creek, we were awarded funding from HUD to install pedestrian scale lighting on Lyons Road to help illuminate the recently constructed sidewalks and bike lanes. In partnership with the City of Sunrise, we were awarded funding from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to build a Complete Street network in neighborhoods adjacent to the Sunrise City Hall and Civic Center. These extra accomplishments are on top of our day-to-day work, coordinating the transportation system, ensuring infrastructure projects are being completed as proposed, and that the public input is considered as projects move forward. We work very hard to ensure that the underrepresented and economically challenged voices are considered as projects go from planning to construction with our various implementing partners at the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), Broward County, and each city. The Broward MPO can celebrate our strength through partnerships that help us achieve our shared goals. The elected officials on our Board of Directors are dedicated to making Broward a safe, efficient, and livable region. Our federal, state, county, and local colleagues collaborate to achieve common goals. The staff at the Broward MPO are the most dedicated people I have had the pleasure of working with. This organization only works because of the hard work of its people. From the entire team at the Broward MPO, please have a safe, happy, and celebratory holiday. We look forward to our New Year's message as we start 2024.
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