HAVRE — The City of Havre recently secured $140,000 in "Safe Streets for All" to improve street safety.
The money will now be used to conduct traffic safety engineering research overseen by the Montana Department of Transportation and the Havre Public Works Department.
“Last I know they did a study was 2003, so 20 years ago,” says Director of Public Works Trevor Mork.
Much of the money will go towards demonstrations suggesting hypothetical traffic changes and the complete streets concept which gauges how pedestrians and vehicles interact at various traffic junctions. Trevor says the funding must prioritize high incident and fatality zones.
“There are a few hotspots around this area that do fit that category. Conveniently, some of the school zones are part of emergency routes. There are times where high speed vehicles could be going through. Whether that's an ambulance, fire truck or police. So it's just how do we design those two situations to work well together,” says Mork.
Mork also says high-incident areas include downtown shops and public parks.
Mork hopes research can begin by the start of the next fiscal year. Ideally the research findings will lead to a second grant which will include money to implement the traffic safety findings.
“It may be safe, but can it be safer? That's our hope, is to always strive to be better,” says Mork.
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