In mid-December, the cities of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Seattle, Washington, were jointly awarded a $14.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to further their ongoing efforts to improve curb-management practices.
The funding will enable Minneapolis and Seattle to pursue a 3-year project titled “Smart Curbs for Better Access: A Digital, Data Driven Approach Across Cities.”
Stage 2 SMART funding
The funding came from the federal Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) discretionary grant program that was created by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. “The SMART program was established to provide grants to eligible public sector agencies to conduct demonstration projects focused on advanced smart community technologies and systems in order to improve transportation efficiency and safety,” according to the DOT’s website.
A two-stage effort, the SMART program offers 18-month Stage 1 grants up to $2 million. Only recipients of Stage 1 grants are eligible for Stage 2 grants, which cover a period of 36 months and provide up to $15 million.
Minneapolis and Seattle were two of nine entities that received Stage 1 grants pertaining to curb management in 2022. On December 16, the DOT announced the award of $85 million in SMART grant funding for the first round of Stage 2 Implementation Grants.
The grant received by Minneapolis and Seattle was one of only eight Stage 2 projects awarded by the DOT. “We were very honored to be selected as one of those eight projects,” said Dillon Fried, the mobility and curbside access manager for the city of Minneapolis.
Wrapping up Stage 1
Armed with its Stage 1 funding, Minneapolis began an 18-month curb management pilot project in September 2023. Titled an “Open Data Approach to Curbside Management,” the ongoing project involves an approximately mile-long corridor in a busy commercial retail district in south Minneapolis.
Scheduled to conclude in mid-March 2025, the pilot project has “three major components,” Fried said. These include creating a digital curb map of the project area, installing smart sensor technology, and engaging in stakeholder involvement.
“We have both in-ground and camera-based sensors along that corridor to give us really rich information about when the curb is being used, what the dwell times of vehicles are, and what types of vehicles are using the curb,” Fried said. “Using the smart sensor technology, we're able to do things like identify instances of double parking, excessive dwell times of vehicles, and things like that.”
Stage 2 plans
For its part of the Stage 2 project, Minneapolis will scale up its curb management program to include seven additional areas, Fried said. The city expects to start this second phase immediately upon concluding the initial pilot in mid-March 2025. “We don't want to lose momentum,” he noted.
Although Minneapolis is the lead agency on the Stage 2 project, Seattle is an equal partner and will receive equal funding, Fried said. (Parking Today contacted the Seattle Department of Transportation for comment but was referred to the city of Minneapolis.)
However, other municipalities interested in curb management stand to benefit from the work by Minneapolis and Seattle, Fried said. “A cornerstone of our project pitch was we wanted to help other cities besides just Minneapolis and Seattle do the same thing,” he said. The two cities plan “to produce material and develop toolkits for other cities” looking to pursue similar approaches to improve the overall functioning of street operations, he noted.
“The ultimate goal of our projects is to have better curbside management,” Fried said. “We're trying to do that through increasing our digital infrastructure and using that digital infrastructure in ways to make better decisions about how we manage our curbs.”
Tangible benefits are expected to include improved safety and better air quality by reducing double parking and traffic congestion. “We're also hoping to foster economic development opportunities in our city as delivery access becomes more predictable and efficient for both the delivery providers themselves and for the local businesses,” Fried said.
Furthering the curb data specification
Another project goal entails furthering the development of the Curb Data Specification (CDS), a standardized digital framework created by the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF) to help users manage curb space effectively. A nonprofit organization of which Minneapolis and Seattle are members, the OMF was formed to develop open-source mobility standards and tools for cities.
“We're really seeking to integrate data sharing and data standards across cities and across the private-sector partners through the development of the CDS,” Fried said.
For its part, the OMF applauded the efforts of Minneapolis and Seattle to obtain Stage 2 SMART grant funding to improve curb management practices. “As original members of the OMF’s SMART Curb Collaborative, Minneapolis and Seattle are demonstrating the power of data standards like the [CDS] to address real-world challenges in curb management,” said Angela Giacchetti, the OMF’s director of engagement and communications.
“This work is all about ensuring this valuable public space can support a variety of demands, from safe loading zones and passenger pick-ups to bike lanes and deliveries,” Giacchetti said. “By using data to better allocate curb space, cities can reduce congestion, improve accessibility, and create safer, more efficient streets. The scaling of these projects will not only enhance how cities manage their curbs but will also serve as a blueprint for other communities looking to improve mobility and quality of life through innovative, data-driven approaches.”
In addition to the OMF, the Stage 2 project also will involve the participation of the Urban Freight Lab within the University of Washington’s Office of Research.
Jay Landers is the editor-in-chief of Parking Today. He can be reached at jay@parkingtoday.com.
