North Andover and Groveland both were awarded grants yesterday under the state’s Shared Winter Streets and Spaces Grant Program.
The program, launched last month, provides technical assistance and money to help cities and towns conceive, design and implement changes to curbs, streets and parking areas with a special focus on the particular challenges of winter.
North Andover received $200,926 to construct 1,100 new feet of sidewalk in order to provide better and safer connections among the Stevens Memorial Library, North Andover Middle School, St. Michael’s Church and School and surrounding neighborhoods. Groveland received $29,590 to improve the safety and functionality of the walking network near the Bagnall School, downtown area and recreational facilities.
Massachusetts Department of Transportation, which administers the program, gave out $1.7 million in the first round.
Gov. Charlie Baker said, “We expect these grant awards to lead to additional infrastructure installations in cities and towns which help people to physically-distance and help people feel more comfortable about walking, bicycling and taking public transportation.”
The Shared Winter Streets and Spaces Grant Program provides grants as small as $5,000 and as large as $500,000 for communities to quickly launch changes for safer walking, bicycling, public transit use, recreation, commerce and civic activities. These improvements can be intentionally temporary or can be pilots of potentially permanent changes.