Federal Rural Road Safety Funding Falls Short of Requests

Contrasting the urgency with which federal agencies investigate airplane incidents with our much more laissez-faire attitude toward car crashes, Claire Carlson, in an article in the Daily Yonder, notes that insufficient resources are allocated to improving safety on rural American roads.

About 25% of all pedestrian and cyclist deaths happen on rural highways, according to a 2010 report from the Highway Safety Information System. Speed limits on rural roads are generally higher than in cities, and most of them lack sidewalks and bicycle lanes.

Yet a $645 million allocation from the U.S. Department of Transportation in December 2023 paled in comparison to the $7.4 billion in applications and requests. “While road safety should be improved everywhere, rural roads are especially in need of attention, as the number of rural applicants to this program illustrates.”