Smart Growth America’s ongoing Community Connectors program seeks to equip small and mid-sized communities to identify, remove, or repair the damage of divisive infrastructure. Because Congress has moved to essentially kill the popular Reconnecting Communities program by rescinding and taking back more than $2.4 billion for these projects—much of that already awarded to local communities—one of the best available sources of dedicated funding for these types of projects has disappeared overnight.

But that does not mean these types of projects cannot move forward. Although costly projects to remove or cap an entire highway or repair the damage of an enormous legacy interstate project will be far more difficult without this program, there are countless ways to use existing federal, state, or local money to quickly make unsafe and divisive roadways safer and more accessible. And implementing a quick-build demonstration project on roads like these can be an important first step toward a more ambitious permanent project. This iteration of the Community Connectors program is narrowly focused on divisive arterial highways and other dangerous roads that have divided or damaged communities.

The objectives of this program are to:

• Make dangerous streets and roads safer; start repairing damage and division. Learn how demonstration projects are a proven strategy to make dangerous streets safer today, while also making the case for permanent changes tomorrow.
• Develop new skills that can be used on future projects. Create the kind of experience and capacity that can be used on other projects in the future, so that the community can design and implement other safety pilot projects on their own.
• Learn more about Complete Streets. Learn together and from one another about the role that a Complete Streets approach plays in addressing traffic violence and building great places.
• Build trust and lasting partnerships. Help these teams build the trust required to tackle more of these sorts of projects, repair past damage, and address what is often a legacy of harm.
• Bring teams together that include community-based organizations and local governments, but also potentially transit agencies, health advocates, housing non-profits, land trusts, major employers, lenders & others.
• Share lessons with others. Produce a report with case studies, lessons learned and recommendations to support this work more broadly both in experimental quick-builds and more permanent Complete Streets support.