The City of South Bend has been awarded a $2.4 million federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant to fund planning and engineering work related to the removal of antiquated highway infrastructure along the Eddy Street bridge over the St. Joseph River. The study area includes the cloverleaf interchanges on the Eddy Street bridge along with the street network around the South Bend Farmers Market.

Grant funds will be used to conduct further planning, engineering and environmental review work in the study area to determine the impacts of the removal of the cloverleaf interchanges and establishment of a network of interconnected, neighborhood scaled streets to improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers. The engineering and environmental review work is anticipated to take up to three years to complete. After this stage, the City will look at applying for other federal funds to construct the project.

The RAISE federal grants are administered through the U.S. Department of Transportation. South Bend’s proposal was one of 166 projects selected as a recipient this year with the City matching the grant award with $600,000.