Acting Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Administrator Stephanie Pollack announced Wednesday that her department had awarded $6 million in grant funding to the City of Winston-Salem, North Carolina for an extension of the Long Branch Trail.
The 1.2-mile extension runs along the North Carolina Department of Transportation rail corridor in Winston-Salem. Part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the funding will help the city implement safety features and improve transportation connectivity in the underserved community, while increasing access to education centers in the area and connecting residents to job opportunities.
“The City of Winston-Salem’s Long Branch Trail extension is a great example of federal investment from the Biden-Harris Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law supporting the best locally grown ideas,” Pollack said. “The extension to the Long Branch Trail will nearly double the length of the existing trail, expand transportation options for residents in underserved communities and connect people to jobs and other important opportunities in downtown Winston-Salem.”
The grant is part of the more than $60 million awarded to projects in North Carolina, including funding for the Flow Better (Fixing Low Water Bridges for Emergency, Transportation, Technology, Equity and Resilience) Program to reconstruct an estimated 28 bridges across six rural, Western counties; the Partnership for Active Regional Transportation and Neighborhood Equity Project that would transform the Charlotte Road and Main Street Corridor into a complete street with road, bicycle, pedestrian and transit improvements; and the Weeksville Road Accessibility & Connectivity Plan in Elizabeth City to fund the engineering and design of approximately 3.6-miles of multi-use paths on Weeksville Road along the NC 344 Corridor.”
“We are proud to support so many outstanding infrastructure projects in communities large and small, modernizing America’s transportation systems to make them safer, more affordable, more accessible, and more sustainable,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. “Using funds from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this year we are supporting more projects than ever before.”