New York - Up to 20 cities in the United States could each receive 25,000 US dollars in grant funding to use art and design to improve street safety. In cities that have already received grants, the measures have reduced vehicle speeds by as much as 45 per cent.

The grants are part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies' Asphalt Art Initiative, a grant program launched in 2019 to improve public spaces and support cities to work with artists and community groups on projects involving transportation infrastructure, according to an article from Smart Cities Dive. 

Grants have already been awarded to 16 cities. In one, Kansas City, the redesign of an intersection with murals and curb extensions has reduced overall vehicle speeds by 45% and shortened pedestrian crossing distances by 50%, writes the article. 

"This is an opportunity to truly rethink, refashion, reshape our cities, our neighborhoods, our towns, our cultural life in a vastly new way," Kamilah Forbes, executive producer at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, NY, said during a panel discussion, as reported in the article.

The arts can also play a role in helping cities recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Forbes, once cities safely reopen, the arts can reunite people who have been apart. She said: “Creativity reminds us of our empathy and humanity, and a recovery must emphasize those aspects of our lives.”