Fort Wayne awarded with PROTECT Grant

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) - The City of Fort Wayne shared Thursday morning that it has been awarded $3.5 million from the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) PROTECT program.

According to the PROTECT program fact sheet, the grant serves to “help make surface transportation more resilient to natural hazards, including climate change, sea level rise, flooding, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters through the support of planning activities, resilience improvements, community resilience and evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure.”

The city of Fort Wayne says it will use the grant to fund the stabilization of nearly 2,500 feet of the St. Marys River’s west bank by using what leaders describe as “nature-based solutions” to combat the erosion threatening Bluffton Road. “The erosion of the St. Marys riverbank has been a long-standing issue. This funding provides a great opportunity to address a primary corridor – Bluffton Road – entering into the Waynedale area. Stabilizing the riverbank will help enhance the safety of this major corridor for years to come,” Public Works Director Shan Gunawardena said.

A release by the city notes that Fort Wayne is the only city in Indiana to receive grant funding from the program which awarded funds to 80 projects across the U.S. The money Fort Wayne will receive was awarded by the FHWA to only 36 communities nationwide for the improvement of the durability of surface transportation infrastructure in the city.

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