The City of Waco applied for three separate grants to help improve three accident-prone intersections.
The three grants are for the 19th Street and Park Lake Drive, 19th Street and Lake Shore Drive and 25th/26th Street and Bosque Blvd.
"They had a higher crash rate than we would like to see at our intersections. All three of them were in the top 20 intersections in the city as far as crashes. But also ones that the improvements we are making, we believe they can have an immediate impact on the number of crashes we see at those intersections," Eric Gallt, Trafficking Engineering Manager for the City of Waco, said.
Gallt said the city looked at the number of accidents, especially severe ones, over a five year period.
At 19th Street and Lake Shore Boulevard, there have been nearly 57 crashes. Near Park Lake Drive and 19th Street, there have been more than 100 in five years. On Bosque Blvd at 25th/26th Street, there have been about 100 crashes, some of them deadly.
In May 2017, a car and school bus collided and the driver of the car died.
In April 2015, a man had to be pulled out from his SUV and he later died at the hospital.
Gallt said the city recognizes the issues in the area and wants to make improvements.
"Safety is always our highest priority, especially in the traffic engineering department," Gallt said.
The grants would help add new signal heads, add protected left turns and create accessible sidewalks in the three areas. The grant would pay for 90 percent of the improvements, and the city would pay the remaining 10 percent.
The three grants total up to $700,000. The city won't know if they are approved until December.
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