Grant to fund road safety audit for Maple and Eton

BIRMINGHAM — The city of Birmingham recently received a grant from the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments for a road safety audit of the intersection of Maple Road and Eton Street. The audit will address road safety concerns related to the geometry and configuration of the intersection, officials said.

SEMCOG received funding through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All supplemental planning grant for the project.

“We applied for funding to conduct regional road safety audits throughout the region for intersections and road corridors that either locally or regionally were identified as safety concerns,” SEMCOG Planning Director Kevin Vettraino said.

“The intersection of Maple Road and Eton Street has a history of crashes, sight distance concerns and unique roadway geometry and configuration,” Birmingham City Engineer Melissa Coatta said over email. “Also the City has upcoming projects in this area for Maple Road Concrete Repair Project and S. Eton Project.”

Instead of having a set dollar amount attached to the grant, each municipality is expected to work with a consultant to identify the scope of need. SEMCOG will then cover the expense of the project.

The city has not hired a consultant yet, and the estimated total cost for the study is $20,000, Coatta said in an email. The grant will cover 80%, and the city will pay 20%, she said.

A road safety audit is a performance examination of either an existing road or a planned road or intersection. In Birmingham’s case, the intersection will be looked at by an independent, multidisciplinary audit team who will come up with recommendations for improvement.

Coatta said in an email that the goal is “to identify current safety concerns of this intersection and what options exist to eliminate or mitigate the identified safety concerns.”

Coatta said there is currently no estimated timeline on the project.

SEMCOG sent out a call for projects to the seven counties in southeast Michigan, including Livingston, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, St. Clair, Washtenaw and Wayne counties. Local governments within those seven counties were encouraged to apply. SEMCOG received many applications and awarded eight grants for this round. They plan to have more rounds of the program in the future.

SEMCOG’s Regional Review Committee, made up of local elected officials in southeast Michigan, selected the grant winners.