FHWA's Pollack: "The extension to the Long Branch Trail will nearly double [its] length"

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Federal Highway Administration Acting Administrator Stephanie Pollack recently announced the awarding of a $6 million grant to the City of Winston-Salem, N.C.

The award, given by the Biden-Harris Administration and funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will be used to construct an approximately 1.2-mile extension of the Long Branch Trail along the North Carolina Department of Transportation rail corridor from Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to 25th Street, according to an Aug. 24 news release. The project's goals are to implement new safety features, improve transportation connectivity in an underserved community, increase accessibility to education centers in the project area and to help introduce 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 in the release. "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.”

"Thanks to the RAISE Grant, the city will be able to move this project off the drawing board and get it under construction," Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines said in the release. "When completed, this extension of the Long Branch Trail will not only provide a new way for our citizens to get downtown. It will create new recreation opportunities because they will be connected to the core of our city-wide greenway system.”

The announcement is the latest part of the Biden-Harris Administration's Building a Better America tour started by U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in Tampa, Fla., Aug. 23, according to the release. During the tour, DOT leaders will travel across the country to display and discuss how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is strengthening the transportation infrastructure of communities all over the U.S.

“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,” Buttigieg said in the release. “Using funds from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this year we are supporting more projects than ever before.”