The U.S. transportation department has availed an amount of $11 million to San Francisco. The awarded money has been given to improve and develop the transportation technology which is aimed to increase the traffic planning in the city.
Anthony Foxx, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation said at the conference in Federal Office building (United States) along with the Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco that, “This is part of the 21-century challenge of transportation in America. You’re in one the fastest growing regions in the county, if not the fastest. You’ve got a dynamic economy, people want to be here and the problems of transportation are just related to the lack of attention in trying to move things along”.
The conference was focused on reducing the traffic congestion on the streets of San Francisco. The program focuses on high-occupancy of vehicles on smart lanes of the city and lanes for buses and carpools.
According to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency the report said, “Bringing this kind of innovation through this kind of grant is really groundbreaking stuff and I think it fits well with the DNA of this city, after all, this is where they cable car was invented, so we’ve been doing this kind of innovation for more than 150 years here”.
The research was the result of the Smart City Challenge launched by the USDOT back in December 2015.
“There is a dramatic movement of people who want jobs and better lives and want to move to cities. And they are coming, regardless of whether you want to put out the welcome mat or not, people are looking for that better life and that’s happening not just in San Francisco, in all the major cities in the Bay Area, and in all the major cities across the country,” Lee said.