Federal grants freeze chills Miami-Dade roadway safety

Miami-Dade commissioners approving a federal grant agreement for 24 safety construction projects at the county’s most dangerous intersections learned midway through discussions that the funds had been frozen two days earlier by one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

Commissioners went on to unanimously approve the grant agreement and to ask Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to execute it, though it’s unclear whether the president’s 90-day funds freeze will subsequently be lifted.

“We have just received an indication that there may be a freeze on funds in this category,” the mayor told commissioners after she noted that the grant is still pending and was never executed.

A legislative memo from Chief Operating Officer Jimmy Morales at the Jan. 22 meeting noted in its final sentence that “the county must enter into this federally funded grant agreement with [the US Department of Transportation] by Dec. 31, 2024, to secure the funding.”

At stake is $16.2 million from the Federal Highway Administration via a sweeping infrastructure program initiated by then-President Joe Biden.

President Trump last Monday commanded agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” under that 2021 infrastructure law.

The county would use the money plus $4 million in local funds at 24 high-injury locations identified in a county plan drafted in 2021. Those sites are “where people were most likely to die” in collisions, Commissioner Eileen Higgins explained before the fund freeze was noted. “Many of them are high-crash districts out west” in the county, she said.

Commissioners decided to move ahead in the vote as Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III said “I want us to be in place when the freeze is lifted, but we ought to be aware of that.”

Planned at the intersections are new signs, pavement markings, signals, lighting, sidewalks and pedestrian ramps at 14 midblock crossings and nine intersections.