$36.6 million in improvements coming to Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail

The City of Montgomery has been awarded $36.6 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation to improve the Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail.

The announcement was made today by U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Alabama).

The money comes from the transportation department’s Neighborhood Access and Equity grant program and will be used to develop a greenway trailhead to facilitate zero emissions and ADA-accessible transportation options along the trail.

The zero emission infrastructure will include rehabilitating the Transportation Administrative Building and a brownfield site along the trail into new locations for microgrids and charging stations for private and public transit.

The Fairview Transfer Station will be rehabilitated to house smart benches, Wi-Fi nodes, wayfinding kiosks and a workforce micro-transit hub.

“On the heels of the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, we are thrilled to have secured major federal funding to improve our transportation infrastructure along the Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail,” Sewell said.

The Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail retraces the steps that voting rights marchers took in their journey from Selma to the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery in March of 1965.  Their efforts, including the Bloody Sunday beatings they suffered after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.